based on his intense but mercurial relationship with Nizan, with whom
he was having a falling-out. As he would later do with his novelsNausea
andThe Age of Reason, Sartre was using his creative imagination to
work through emotional crises in his own life.^4 This six-month period
of estrangement served to solidify his friendship with classmate Rene ́
Maheu, who would subsequently introduce Sartre to his friend Simone
de Beauvoir. In her memoirs, Beauvoir notes that the three young
men “became almost inseparable.”^5 While at Louis-le-Grand, Sartre
and Nizan, who occasionally referred to themselves as “supermen,”
considered Maheu from the class behind them to be above the herd
though not quite on their level.^6
Though he had been exposed to philosophy at Henri IV, Sartre’s
interests at that stage were primarily literary. Philosophy he dismissed
as “a stupendous bore” (un prodige d’ennui).^7 Not until taking the phil-
osophy class of Professor Colonna d’Istria at Louis-le-Grand did Sartre
“discover” philosophy. Like all thekhaˆgneux, he was required to study
philosophy as well as history, French, Latin and Greek or modern
languages in preparation for the entrance exam to the ENS. Sartre’s
philosophical experience came from reading Bergson’s Les Donne ́es
imme ́diates de la conscience (the immediate givens of consciousness),
translated asTime and Free Will, at the suggestion of Colonna d’Istria
in preparation for an essay on “Consciousness of duration.” Time and
freedom as well as the “data” of consciousness would continue to be
major issues in Sartre’s thought thereafter. And if he did not become a
disciple of Bergson, who was still a major influence in those years, Sartre
would address many Bergsonian theses and themes in his subsequent
writings.^8 Years later he would feel the need to combat Bergson inBeing
(^4) SeeEJ 138.
(^5) See Simone de Beauvoir,Me ́moires d’une jeune fille rage ́e(Paris: Gallimard, 1958 ), 440 – 444.
(^6) Rene ́Maheu would later become the director of UNESCO and headquartered in Paris. From
that position he invited Sartre to deliver one of their inaugural lectures in November 1 ,
1946 on “The Writer’s Responsibility.” Years later, he delivered another UNESCO lecture
(April 1964 ) this time on “The Living Kierkegaard,” published as “Kierkegaard: The
Singular Universal,”Between Existentialism and Marxism: Essays and Interviews, 1959 – 70 ,
7 trans. John Mathews (London: New Left Books,^1974 ),^141 –^169 ; hereafterBEM.
8 OR, chronologie, xli.
Raymond Aron remarks of his classmates at the ENS: “For a master who would inspire us
either to attack or to promote his works, our only choices were Le ́on Brunschvicg, Alain or
Bergson (who had already retired from teaching)” (Me ́moires 38 ).
22 An elite education: student, author, soldier, teacher