In the course of the French Revolution and the political changes that followed, notably the Napoleon Regime, the school was reorganized according to French educational systems and renamed several times: École centrale (1795-1802), École Secondaire (1802-1808), Collège municipal (1808-1817).
When Luxembourg was occupied by Nazi forces in World War II in 1940, the school was forcibly Germanized, renamed as Gymnasium mit Oberschule für Jungen, and the French language was forbidden.