Page:Voices of Revolt - Volume 1.djvu/13



the year 1770 a boy knocked at the gate of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. Mass was just being held, and the youth could still hear the last notes of the organ as he was resting on a bench. He had covered a long distance on his journey: he had come from Arras.

"Praised be Jesus Christ," was the sexton's greeting as he opened the gate. The boy had already been announced, and was at once led to the rector. "So your name is Maximilien Robespierre, my child?" asked the Jesuit who conducted the institution. The young man becomes a scholar, one of the most diligent students of the Lycée Louis-le-Grand.

He is poor; it is only due to the snobbishness of his relatives that Maximilien is permitted to study in the school of the rich. In Arras, even the bourgeoisie has some pretense to culture. The nobles of the province hire philosophizing abbés and private tutors, and send their sons to Versailles. There they learn the best manners, the most aristocratic ways and the most elegant language, a language that was already so generally accepted, that an Italian,