2

An elite education: student,

author, soldier, teacher

A

fter a mixedperformance in the public school in La Rochelle,^1
Sartre returned to Paris and the Lyce ́e Henri IV in October of
1920 , this time as a boarder, where he rejoined Paul Nizan. Already a
voracious reader, and nudged by his friend Nizan, who also nourished
literary aspirations, Sartre discovered authors such as Giraudoux, Gide,
Paul Morand, Vale ́ry and especially Proust, who would continue to
interest and form him in the coming years. He discussed Dostoevsky
with his grandmother on home visits and perhaps with her began his
reading of Stendhal, who would become his favorite author.^2
Faced with much stiffer competition, his academic performance grew
apace. The following year Sartre received the prize for excellence on
the first half of the baccalaureate exams, June 1921 , and completed the
second half in June 1922. While still studying for their baccalaureates,
both Sartre and Nizan attended the post-baccalaureate lectures of the
renowned, charismatic professor Emile Chartier, known as Alain, whose

(^1) The honor rolls for his academic years 1918 – 1919 and 1919 – 1920 show him taking first prize
in French composition and Latin translation and composition as well as prizes in Greek and
mathematics, though not named in several other categories (Album Jean-Paul Sartre, icono-
graphie choisie et commente ́e par Annie Cohen-Solal [Paris: Gallimard, 1991 ], 31 and Jean-
Paul Sartre,Œuvres romanesques, ed. Michel Contat and Michel Rybalka, Bibliothe`que de la
Ple ́iade [Paris: Gallimard, 1981 ], chronologie, xxxix; hereafterOR). In her interview, de
Beauvoir remarks: “You were not always first in the class; when you were in La Rochelle, you
didn’t have such academic success.” Sartre responds by blaming his stepfather, whose idea of
2 success was achievement in the sciences, which Sartre consequently neglected (Ce ́r^185 –^186 ).
See Michel Contat, “Pourquoi Sartre n’a pas e ́crit sur son e ́crivain pre ́fe ́re ́: Stendhal,”
Lectures 139 – 160. Why did Sartre not write about his favorite author? Contat’s response, in
brief, is that “Sartre’s strong identification with Stendhal” kept him from doing so” ( 140 ).
See also Paul Desalmand,Sartre, Stendhal et la morale(Paris: Le Publieur, 2002 ).
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