The lycée Saint-Louis is a highly selective post-secondary school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris, in the Latin Quarter. It is the only public French lycée exclusively dedicated to providing classes préparatoires aux grandes écoles (CPGE; preparatory classes for the Grandes Écoles such as École Polytechnique, CentraleSupélec in engineering and ESSEC Business School, ESCP Business School, and HEC Paris in commerce). It is known for the quality of its teaching, low acceptance rate and the results it achieves in their intensely competitive entrance examinations (concours). It is widely regarded as one of the best preparatory class in France and one of the most elitist and prestigious along with its neighbours from the Sainte-Geneviève hill the lycée Henri IV and the lycée Louis-Le-Grand. Saint-Louis has graduated many notable alumni, including five Nobel laureates, one Fields laureate, one President of France, as well as major intellectual figures such as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Émile Zola or Louis Pasteur. History Collège d'Harcourt The lycée Saint-Louis was formerly known as the Collège d'Harcourt (). The Collège d'Harcourt was founded in 1280 by Robert and Raoul d'Harcourt to offer food and housing for around forty students from underprivileged backgrounds. Starting from its beginning, it was not only a simple student residence but also a place of teaching, this activity took more and more importance over time. During the Wars of Religion, it was a Catholic stronghold. As a result, Henri IV confiscated the college's property and dismissed its director. Once peace returned, the king reformed the teaching of the colleges: initially intended to train clerics and academics through theological studies, the college was transformed into an institution where the children of the gentry, Parisian bourgeoisie and scholarship holders from Normandy studied. The college started to become famous in the 16th century, and great historical figures such as Racine, Boileau and Perrault attended it in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the 18th century, it was a stronghold of Jansenists and graduated several of the philosophes and Encyclopédistes of the Enlightenment and therefore opposed the influence of the Jesuits in education, whose stronghold was located couples meter away, at the college of Clermont. The original building was demolished in 1795 and the present one was built on its site in 1814. In the course of the tumultuous 19th century, the lycée was successively turned by force into a prison, barracks and reformatory. Lycée Saint-Louis In 1812,