Jean-François Champagne

Who was Jean-François Champagne?

Jean-François Champagne Semur-en-Auxois, 1 July 1751 - Paris, 14 September 1813, was a French scholar.

In a unique way, he spent most of his life within the walls of the same academic institution, "Lycée Louis-le-Grand" in the heart of Paris, as pupil when a teenager, then as simple teacher, and grew to be its first Head Teacher, while in parallel that establishment evolved from a medley of various private and mostly religious educational foundations under the reigns of Louis XV and Louis XVI into the prototype model of highest level colleges in the French educational system, that emerged in the turmoil of the Revolution years from the educational dreams of the new ruling middle class and took its fundamental properties in the early Empire days ("Lycée").

Most of all, through the difficult revolutionary years and multiple throes, hazards and harassments during the French Revolution, he contrived in keeping open the Lycée Louis-le-Grand throughout the period, a unique case for institutions of that type.