Jesuit history in France begins with the arrival of Ignatius of Loyola, as a student at the University of Paris, in 1528. His seven years in Paris were the time and place that gave birth to a small group of companions that became the Society of Jesus. It would be hard to exaggerate the place of Paris and France in the life of Ignatius and in the origins of the Jesuits. The University of Paris,with its international student body, its highly structured curriculum, and its strengths in classical languages, rhetoric, philosophy, and theology, would strongly influence both the education or “formation” that Jesuits themselves would receive, and the education offered to others in Jesuit schools throughout the world. Yet France, albeit Catholic, and albeit the birthplace of the Jesuit Order, was often a very difficult place for Jesuits to function. Gallican traditions of ecclesiastical independence from Rome, and of royal patronage of the French church, helped to ground deep hostility to a new religious order founded by a Spaniard and under a vow of obedience to the pope. Still, Jesuits also overcame opposition, and were able to establish themselves in France. Some Jesuit colleges were founded in France in the 1550s and 1560s, laying the groundwork for the later proliferation of Jesuit institutions. The late sixteenth century was a period of phenomenal growth for Jesuit numbers and institutions in much of Europe and indeed elsewhere; in France, even in the midst of the Wars of Religion, Jesuit numbers grew and several colleges were founded.