¹ The legislative steps in this process were the Guizot Law of 1833, which required a primary school for boys in every commune; the Falloux Law of 1850, which established national educational standards, expanded the teaching force, and encouraged girls’ schools; and the Ferry Laws of 1881–82, which mandated free and compulsory education for all children aged six to thirteen. The Third Republic also secularized the school curriculum, prohibited members of religious orders from teaching in public schools, and expanded facilities for teacher training. There is a large literature on the politics of French school reform. See especially Antoine Prost, Histoire de l'enseignement en France, 1800–1967 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1968), Anderson, R. D. Education in France: 1848–1870 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), Horvath-Peterson, Sandra Victor Duruy: Liberal Reform in the Second Empire (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984), and Ozouf, Mona L'école, l'Eglise et la République, 1871–1914 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1963).Google Scholar

² Grew, Raymond and Harrigan, Patrick J. School, State, and Society: The Growth of Elementary Schooling in Nineteenth-Century France—A Quantitative Analysis (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1991). François Furet and Ozouf, Jacques Reading and Writing: Literacy in France from Calvin to Jules Ferry (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). Gildea, Robert Education in Provincial France, 1800–1914: A Study of Three Departments (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983).Google Scholar

³ Zeldin, Theodore France, 1848–1945, vol. 3 Intellect and Pride (paperback ed., New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), 147.Google Scholar

⁴ This was especially true for primary education. Catholic control over secondary schools that served the elite engendered far more political battles before 1870. See Prost, Histoire de l'enseignement, Anderson, Education in France, Horvath-Peterson, Victor Duruy, and Woloch, Isser The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789–1820s (New York: W.W. Norton, 1994).Google Scholar

⁵ Strictly speaking, all primary education in France before 1881 was “Catholic,” in that religious instruction was part of the mandated curriculum. Contemporaries and historians distinguish, however, between schools that were staffed by religious orders (in French, congregations) and those that were staffed by lay personnel. The former, “congregational schools,” are the subject of this article and “Catholic” will be used here as a synonym for “congregational.”Google Scholar

⁶ See, for example, Michelet, Jules Priests, Women, and Families (London: Longman, 1845); Buisson, F. Dictionnaire depedagogie et d'instruction primaire (Paris: Hachette, 1882); and Robiquet, Paul ed., Discours et opinions de Jules Ferry, vols. 3 and 4, Les his scolaires (Paris: Armand Colin, 1896).Google Scholar

⁷ The diocese was a church adminstrative unit, whereas the department was a unit of French administration, roughly the size of an American county, established by the Revolution. For educational purposes, the state also established academies whose rectors were responsible for schooling in a given area. In this case, both the diocese and the academy were made up of the two departments of Rhŏne and Loire, located approximately 250 miles southeast of Paris.Google Scholar

⁸ This region has been the subject of a number of detailed political, socioeconomic, and demographic studies. On the Rhŏne, see Garrier, Gilbert Paysans du Beaujolais et du Lyonnais, 2 vols. (Grenoble: Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, 1973); Yves Lequin, Les ouvriers de la region Lyonnaise (1848–1914), 2 vols. (Lyon: Presses Universitaires de Lyon, 1977); Sheridan, George Jr., The Social and Economic Foundations of Association among the Silk Weavers of Lyons, 1852–1870 (New York: Arno Press, 1981), and Stewart-McDougall, Mary Lynn The Artisan Republic: Revolution, Reaction, and Resistance in Lyon, 1848–1851 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1984). On the Loire, see Accampo, Elinor Industrialization, Family Life, and Class Relations: Saint Chamond, 1815–1914 (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989); Aminzade, Ronald Ballots and Barricades: Class Formation and Republican Politics in France, 1830–1871 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993); Hanagan, Michael P. The Logic of Solidarity: Artisans and Industrial Workers in Three French Towns, 1871–1914 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980); and Schnetlzer, Jacques Les industries et les hommes dans la région de Saint-Etienne: Etude de géographic humaine (St-Etienne: Le Feuillet Blanc, 1975).Google Scholar

⁹ Grew and Harrigan, School, State, and Society, 40–42.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Grew and Harrigan, School, State, and Society, 94. Other areas of France with a high proportion of Catholic schools lagged behind the average in numbers of schools. What was most remarkable, however, in comparison to other regions of France, was the large proportion of boys enrolled in Catholic schools.Google Scholar

¹¹ For male teachers the exact figures are: 1840, Rhŏne 25.4%, Loire 33.1%; 1863, Rhŏne 53.2%, Loire 60.4%; 1872, Rhŏne 41.2%, Loire 57.3%; 1876–77, Rhŏne 45.2%, Loire 59.1. For female teachers: 1840, Rhŏne 66.3%, Loire 86.4%; 1863, Rhŏne 75.1%, Loire 93.9%; 1872, Rhŏne 68.4%, Loire 89%; 1876–77, Rhŏne 73.8%, Loire 88.7%. Ministère de l'Instruction publique et des Beaux-Arts, Statistique de l'enseignement primaire, vol. 2.Google Scholar

¹² Rector, Academy of Lyon to Minister, Public Instruction, 1870, F 17 9486, A[rchives] N[ationales], Paris. The Academy of Lyon contained the two departments of Rhŏne and Loire and was contiguous with the diocese.Google Scholar

¹³ Farnham, Janice S. “Alternative Childhood: Girls’ Providences in Nineteenth-Century Lyon (1800–1850)“ (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1989), 93.Google Scholar

¹⁴ The national averages were 49.4 for women, 9.8 for men. Gibson, Ralph A Social History of French Catholicism, 1789–1914 (London: Routledge, 1989), 112–14.Google Scholar

¹⁵ On the spectacular growth of active religious orders for women (from 12,300 members in 1808 to 135,000 in 1878), see Langlois, Claude Le Catholicism au féminin: Les congrégations françaises à supérieure générale au XIXe siècle (Paris: Cerf, 1984). On active religious orders of men, the best study to date is Pierre Zind, Les nouvelles congrégations de Frères enseignants en France de 1800 à 1830, 3 vols. (Lyon: Centre d'Histoire du Catholicisme Français de l'Université de Lyon, 1969).Google Scholar

¹⁶ On lay schoolteachers in the first part of the nineteenth century, see Zind, Pierre “L'enseignement primaire sous la Restauration dans l'arrondissement de St-Etienne,“ Cahiers d'Histoire 3 (1958): 359–72; Gontard, Maurice L'enseignement primaire en France de la Révolution à la loi Guizot (1789–1833): Des petites écoles de la monarchic d'ancien régime aux écoles primaires de la monarchic bourgeoise (Lyon: Faculté des Lettres, 1959); Reboul-Scherrer, Fabienne La vie quotidienne des premiers instituteurs, 1833–1882 (Paris: Hachette, 1989); Furet and Ozouf, Reading and Writing, chapter 3.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Simon, Jules “L'enseignement primaire des filles en 1864,“ Revue des deux mondes 52 (1864): 956.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Régny, 8 A 1, A[rchives] des S[oeurs du] M[onde] R[ural] (formerly Soeurs de l'Enfant-Jésus à Claveisolles), Oullins.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Mayor, Duerne to Prefect, 1865, T 98, A[rchives] D[épartementales du] R[hŏne], Lyon.Google Scholar

²⁰ Cited in Gontard, L'enseignement primaire, 252.Google Scholar

²¹ Men's normal schools were relocated from departmental capitals to quiet country towns (in the case of the Rhŏne, Villefranche, and the Loire, Montbrison) and brought under tighter supervision and control. Most women's normal schools, which were always fewer in number, were run by religious congregations; in Lyon by the Soeurs de St-Joseph. On normal schools, see Maurice Gontard, La question des Ecoles normales primaires de la Révolution de 1789 à la loi de 1879 (Toulouse: Institut National de Recherche et Documentation Pédagogiques, 1962) and Quartararo, Anne T. Women Teachers and Popular Education in Nineteenth-Century France: Social Values and Corporate Identity at the Normal School Institution (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1995).Google Scholar

²² Gemie, Sharif “‘A Danger to Society'?—Teachers and Authority in France, 1833–1850,“ French History 2 (1988): 269. Olivier de Becdelièvre, “L'établissement de l'école primaire dans la Loire au cours de la première moitié du XIXème siécle” (mémoire de maǐtrise, Université de St-Etienne, 1976), 148.Google Scholar

²³ Report entitled “Département du Rhŏne,” 1855, F 17 9332, AN.Google Scholar

²⁴ The growth rates of active congregations remained steady for the period 1808–78 and were not related to changes in political regime or legislation. Langlois, Le catholicisme au féminin, 317, 519–21.Google Scholar

²⁵ Napoleon, III like his uncle Napoleon I, who had reestablished congregations in France, saw the church as an instrument of social order. He also authorized many previously unofficial congregations, including several in the diocese of Lyon, which allowed them to receive property and legacies.Google Scholar

²⁶ In some cases, a mayor or donor would take on this role, and congregational school contracts in cities were usually initiated and negotiated directly with municipal councils.Google Scholar

²⁷ The Frères Maristes and the Clercs de St-Viateur, founded by Champagnat, Marcellin and Querbes, Louis respectfully, began in just this way. Parish priests were also instrumental in the creation of several of the smaller female religious orders in this diocese.Google Scholar

²⁸ “Directoire,” 1810, A[rchives de Soeurs de] St-C[harles], Lyon.Google Scholar

²⁹ Although this religious world view implied political support for conservative regimes that allowed the church more power and influence in French life, the congregations, in particular, stayed clear of political debates until school reform issues emerged in the 1880s.Google Scholar

³⁰ “Demandes d'implantation des soeurs,” 1830–1900, 1 D H, A[rchives des Soeurs de] St-J[oseph], Lyon.Google Scholar

³¹ Maristes, Frères Circulaires, vol. 1 312; vol. 2, 449.Google Scholar

³² Institut des Clercs de St-Viateur (Paris: Letouzey et Ané, 1927), 84.Google Scholar

³³ “Notes explicatives,” Superior General, Soeurs de St-Charles to Minister of Justice and Cults, 1838, F 19 6352, AN. Soeur St-Arsène to Mayor, 1839, 1 R 74, A[rchives] M[unicipales] de S[t]-E[tienne].Google Scholar

³⁴ Dossier Querbes, vol. 27, P-6003 (1851); vol. 36, P-7801 (1856).Google Scholar

³⁵ St-Fons, 8 A 1, ASMR.Google Scholar

³⁶ St-Arsène, Soeur to Mayor, 1839, 1 R 74; Superior, Soeurs de St-Charles, St-Etienne to Mayor, 1847, 1 R 83, AMSE.Google Scholar

³⁷ Petitions, 1860, 1862, 1867, 1 R 77, AMSE.Google Scholar

³⁸ “Situation des écoles primaires communales et libres, existant dans le 3e Arrondissement de Lyon,” 1854, T 29, ADR.Google Scholar

³⁹ Superior General to Bishop of Moulins, 1852, Frères Maristes, Circulaires, vol. 2.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Rochetaillée, 8 A 1, ASMR.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Inspector's report, arrondissement of Villefranche, Academy of Rhŏne, 1850–51, T XXVIII, ADR. This problem was not confined to the diocese of Lyon. All over France normal school graduates avoided village schools in favor of more lucrative or less isolating employment. See Gontard, Ecoles normales, 50; Quartararo, 78.Google Scholar

⁴² Aigueperse, Emeringes, Pommiers, Vougy, 8 A 1, ASMR. These schools were founded between 1843 and 1854. The worst examples petered out around the mid-1870s.Google Scholar

⁴³ Bourg-de-Thizy, 8 A 1, ASMR.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ Thizy, Frère Jacques to Favre, Père Hugues 1868, Valsonne file, A[rchives de] C[lercs] de S[t-] V[iateur], Rome.Google Scholar

⁴⁵ Cited in Pierre Zind, “L'enseignement primaire sous la Restauration dans l'arrondissement de St-Etienne,” Cahiers d'Histoire 3 (1958): 371.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Grew and Harrigan, School, State, and Society, 222.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ “Rapport général annuel sur l'état de l'instruction primaire du département de la Loire en 1839,” T 407, A[rchives] D[épartementales de la] L[oire], St-Etienne.Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Rector, Academy of Lyon to Minister, Public Instruction, 1845, F 17 12476, AN.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Inspector, Academy of Lyon to Prefect, 1875, T 42, ADR.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Anderson, Education in France, 81.Google Scholar

⁵¹ This district had 141,873 inhabitants, 127 communes, and 123 primary schools. “Etat des dépenses auxquelles donnera lieu, pour 1834, l'entretien des écoles primaires communales,” T 18', ADR.Google Scholar

⁵² Rector, Academy of Lyon to Minister, Public Instruction, 1867, F 17 9485, AN.Google Scholar

⁵³ Mayor, Pontcharra to Subprefect, Rhŏne, 1875, T 46, ADR.Google Scholar

⁵⁴ “Les Annales de F. Avit,” vol. 1 (Apprieux), A[rchives des] F[rères] M[aristes], St-Genis Laval.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ “Rapport sur la situation de l'instruction primaire dans l'arrondissement de St-Etienne pendant l'année 1859,” F 17 9344, AN.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ “Extrait des Registres de délibérations du Conseil Municipal de St-Etienne,” 1861; Superior, Soeurs de St-Charles, Montaud parish to Mayor, St-Etienne, 1877, 1 R 77, AMSE.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ “Rapport sur la situation de l'Instruction primaire dans le Département du Rhŏne,” 1856, F 17 9332, AN.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ See the series of council deliberations in ADR, T 98–101 (1873–78). The subsidy was usually from 100 to 300 francs.Google Scholar

⁵⁹ “Extrait du Registre des délibérations du Conseil Municipal de Chaponest,” 1876, T 43, ADR.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ “Notes concernant les écoles et les salles d'asile,” 1877, 7 Q 17, ASt-J.Google Scholar

⁶¹ Among the congregations in this diocese, only the Soeurs de St-Charles and the Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes received any direct state aid, in the form of small annual subsidies to help with the training of novices.Google Scholar

⁶² “Rapport de l'inspecteur de l'arrondissement de Montbrison,” 1851, T 408, ADL. By comparison, a child's maid in 1850 could earn around 800 francs a year. Isabelle Bricard, Saintes ou pouliches: L'éducation des jeunes filles au XIXe Siècle (Paris: Albin Michel, 1985), 324.Google Scholar

⁶³ Report of primary inspector, arrondissement of Montbrison, 1858, T 1006, ADL.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Inspector, Academy of Lyon to the Minister of Public Instruction, 1857, F 17 9484, AN.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Subprefect, St-Etienne to Prefect, 1844, V 499, ADL. Subprefect, Villefranche to M. le Conseiller d'Etat, 1853, V 275, ADR.Google Scholar

⁶⁶ “Extrait du Registre des deliberations du Conseil départemental de l'instruction publique,” 1874, T 98, ADR.Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Frères des Ecoles Chrétienne to Mayor and Municipal Council, Lyon, n.d., ca. 1838, “Etats,” ASt-C. Superior General, Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes to Mayor and Municipal Council, 1850, R 45, A[rchives] M[unicipales de] L[yon], Lyon.Google Scholar

⁶⁸ Odonis, Frère Frères des Ecoles Chrétiennes to Mayor, 1872, 1 R 83, AMSE.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ General, Superior Soeurs de St-Charles to Mayor and Municipal Council, 1835, R 45, AML. Superior, Soeurs de St-Charles, St-Etienne to Mayor, 1834, 1 R 83, AMSE.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ Rochefort, Alexandra “Les Soeurs de Saint-Charles de Lyon et l'education féminine au 19ème siècle (1802–1904)“ (mémoire de maǐtrise, Université de Lyon II, 1989), 96–98. Gréard, M. La législation de l'instruction primaire en France depuis 1789 jusqu’ à nos jours (Paris: Deblalain Frères, 1891–1902), vol. 4, 253–54.Google Scholar

⁷¹ “Mairie de St-Etienne, Séance du 8 février 1875, Traitement des Instituteurs,” 1 R 83, AMSE.Google Scholar

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⁷³ Dossier Querbes: Correspondance reçue par le Père Louis Querbes, vol. 37, no. P-8122 (1856). The role of sacristan or village secretary was often taken on by lay schoolmasters also.Google Scholar

⁷⁴ Les Soeurs de Saint-Charles de Lyon (Annates de la Congrégation) (Lyon: Emmanuel Vitte, 1915), vol. 1, 366–67.Google Scholar

⁷⁵ Petition from inhabitants of St-Cyr-le-Chatoux to Subprefect, Rhŏne, 1875, T 100, ADR.Google Scholar

⁷⁶ The laicization of teaching sisters by the Third Republic was fiercely resisted by many communities. See the files in T 101, ADR.Google Scholar

⁷⁷ Dossier Queries, vol. 37, P-8061 (1856).Google Scholar

⁷⁸ “Extrait du régistre des déliberation, Conseil Municipal,” 1872, T DEM 9093, ADL.Google Scholar

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⁸⁰ Curé, Arbuissones to Superior General, 1873, C/A⁶, ASt-J.Google Scholar

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⁸⁴ These examples are from “Notes historiques,” vol. 4, A[rchives des] F[rères des] E[coles] C[hrétiennes], Lyon. Other examples of noble donors can be found in “Les Annales de F. Avit,” AFM.Google Scholar

⁸⁵ Rochefort, “Les Soeurs de St-Charles de Lyon,“ 72–74. On religious charity and bourgeois women, see Smith, Bonnie Ladies of the Leisure Class: The Bourgeoises of Northern France in the Nineteenth Century (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981).Google Scholar

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⁸⁸ “Mairie de Saint-Etienne, Séance du 15 avril 1874,” 1 R 73, AMSE.Google Scholar

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⁹² Cardinal de Bonald was the son of the Vicomte de Bonald, a well known conservative theorist in early-nineteenth-century France, who believed that social stability was based on the traditional relationships between family, church, and village, which were under attack from industrialization. His son translated this philosophy into a paternalistic concern for the treatment of workers in his diocese. Cohen, D. K. “The Vicomte de Bonald's Critique of Industrialism,“ Journal of Modern History 41 (1969): 475–78. Droulers, Paul “Le Cardinal de Bonald et la question ouvrière à Lyon avant 1848,” Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine 4(1957): 284–85.Google Scholar

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⁹⁵ See Katherine Auspitz, The Radical Bourgeoisie: The Ligue de l'enseignment and the Origins of the Third Republic, 1866–1885 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). The contracts of the teaching congregations were restored in 1872 and then definitively broken in 1877–78.Google Scholar

⁹⁶ See the files in ADR, T 98–101. Many local communities continued to insist, well into the 1890s, that congregational schools (especially for girls) provided excellent value for the money, or voted with their feet by supporting now-private Catholic schools in large numbers.Google Scholar

⁹⁷ Magraw, “Conflict in the Villages,“ 200.Google Scholar