64 Jackie 1930–1962
On his very fi rst day, he was given an appointment to see Louis
Althusser, who was in charge of students heading for a course in
philosophy. When Derrida met him, Althusser was thirty-four; he
had still published nothing and was completely unknown. Only a
dozen or so years later would he become a legendary fi gure. Like
Derrida, Althusser had been born in the surroundings of Algiers. He
grew up in a Catholic environment and passed the entrance exam to
the rue d’Ulm in 1939. He was immediately called up into the army,
and soon taken prisoner; he spent fi ve years in a stalag and was able
to return to the École only at the end of the war. He could not take
the agrégation until 1948, when he was thirty; the same year, he
picked up his membership card for the PCF. He was immediately
appointed ‘caïman’ in philosophy, in other words the professor
responsible for preparing students for the agrégation; he would keep
this post for over thirty years. From 1950, he was also secretary of
the École Littéraire – a vaguely defi ned position that seems to have
been invented specially for him. ‘Le Thuss’, as he was often called,
occupied a very dark offi ce on the ground fl oor, to the right of the
‘aquarium’. But he was mainly concerned with looking after the stu-
dents as they prepared for the agrégation. During this fi rst year at
the École, Jackie met him only occasionally.^9
A few weeks after the start of the academic year, however,
Derrida started attending the course on experimental psychology
that a certain Michel Foucault (another unknown fi gure) had been
giving since the previous autumn. Like the other members of the
audience in the classes he gave on Monday evenings, in the little
Cavaillès room, Derrida was struck by the charisma of this profes-
sor, who was only four years older than himself: ‘His eloquence,
authority and brilliance were impressive.’ Sometimes, Foucault
would take a few students to the Saint-Anne hospital, where one
of his psychiatric friends had a practice. This direct experience with
madness was something that Derrida would never forget. ‘A patient
was brought in and a young doctor questioned and examined him.
We were present for that. It was really upsetting.’^10 The doctor
would then retire and, after drawing up his observations, he would
come and give a kind of lecture in front of Georges Daumezon, who
was in charge of the practice. Foucault and Derrida soon struck
up a friendship; this was made easier by the fact that, although he
had been appointed to a junior lectureship at Lille, Foucault at this
period still lived in the École.
Another, even more decisive meeting occurred in February 1953.
Michel Aucouturier, whose father had given him a car as a reward
for passing the entrance exam, took three friends, Michel Serres,
Élie Carrive, and Jackie, on a week’s holiday in the ski resort of
Carroz-d’Arâches, in Haute-Savoie. But if this break is worth men-
tioning here, it is less for the young skiers’ tumbles in the snow than