(2 of 2)
An ordinary Frenchman trying to squeeze into the tiny French intellectual elite is like Charles de Gaulle trying to squeeze into the back seat of a baby Renault. Yet room at the top is always open for top graduates of Louis-le-grand, France's most prestigious lycée, or state-run academic high school. Across the street from the Sorbonne in Paris, Louis-le-grand has an ancient passion to create "an elite of the elite" and a modern penchant for vaulting brainy boys into the grandes écoles, the supra-universities whose graduates virtually run France. This week Lycée Louis-le-grand celebrates the 400th...