pacifism impressed both young men. Sartre would occasionally quote
Alain in later years, probably more than any of his other teachers, though
not always positively. But when the time came to undertake the two-year
preparation for the admission exam to the E ́cole Normale Supe ́rieure,
calledhypokhaˆgneandkhaˆgnerespectively, Sartre’s family saw to it that
he transferred to the reputedly more rigorous Lyce ́e Louis-le-Grand.^3
Paul Nizan transferred there as well. They entered in the fall of 1922 ,
Sartre as a day student, living with his mother and stepfather, who had
returned to Paris.
That summer, Sartre intensified his literary efforts, writing portions
of a novel, “Jesus the Owl, Small-Town Schoolteacher,” reminiscent of
his student days in La Rochelle, and that fall, a short story, “The Angel
of Morbidity.” The latter appeared in a student review,La Revue sans
Titre, January 15 , 1923 , and the former was serialized in four issues of
the same publication that year under the pen-name Jacques Guillemin
after Sartre’s maternal grandmother. He explained that his reason for the
pseudonym was to prevent those familiar with his days at La Rochelle
from recognizing the teacher being described, who had ended his life a
suicide (EJ 51 ). The summer of 1923 Sartre began to write an autobio-
graphical novel,La Semance et le scaphandre(The Seed and the Aqualung)
(^3) As he admits in an interview with Beauvoir years later, Sartre would have preferred to remain
at the Lyce ́e Henri IV for the next two years, working with Alain (seeCe ́r 375 ). At the ENS,
Sartre and Nizan identified with the former students of Alain, who were reputed to be a
rather rowdy bunch. In that respect, they fit right in. In hisMe ́moires, Raymond Aron
wonders why his father did not enroll him in either Henri IV or Louis-le-Grand, since both
had a better placement record for the ENS. His conclusion was that the Lyce ́e Condorcet,
where he was sent, was closer to the Right Bank train station where he would arrive each day
from his home in Versailles (Me ́moires 27 ). But Aron too managed to join the Alain alumni by
sometimes attending his lectures and occasionally waiting for the master as he left the
building after class to accompany him to his residence on the rue de Rennes (Me ́moires 41 ).
In a note toEJ, the editors remark: “[Alain], contrary to a rather widespread story, was never
Sartre’s professor and had only an indirect influence on him. In his works, Sartre generally
levels negative judgments on him” (EJ 524 , note 1 to page 213 ). On the other hand, Cohen-
Solal writes that Sartre and Nizan managed to get an invitation to attend Alain’s class, even
though they were not officially enrolled (seeLife 52 ). And Jean-Franc ̧ois Sirinelli cites
approvingly Sartre’s remark fromCe ́re ́moniequoted above (see Jean-Franc ̧ois Sirinelli,
Ge ́ne ́ration intellectuelle: Khaˆgneux et Normaliens dans l’entre-deux-guerres[Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1994 ], 267 ; hereafterGe ́ne ́ration). Perhaps the difference involves
what it means to have been Sartre’s “professor.” Though never officially enrolled, it seems
clear that Sartre and Nizan did attend at least some of Alain’s lectures and that he had a
notable if “indirect” influence on both young men.
An elite education: student, author, soldier, teacher 21