Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The castle of Vanves was probably built in the mid-17th century for Abbé Charles Le Prevost, lord of Vanves from 1638 to 1661. In 1655 Claude Lebas de Montargis became its owner and entrusted the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart with the construction of a new castle, completed in 1704. Acquired in 1717 by the Prince of Condé, it was sold as a national good during the French Revolution.

In 1798, the French Prytanée (later lycée Louis-le-Grand) bought the estate to set up a holiday place for its interns. In 1853, the small classes (college) of the high school established definitively. The castle was enlarged in 1859 with the addition of a chapel, and the high school became independent in 1864 as Prince Imperial High School, before being renamed Michelet High School in 1888. The facades and roofs of buildings prior to 1900, as well as the interior of the old gymnasium and the festive hall, were listed as historical monuments in 1986.

During the First World War, the high school served as a military surgical hospital, with more than 200 victims among its students and staff. During the Second World War, he was requisitioned by the German Kriegsmarine in 1940, forcing the dispersal of classes. Jean Warin, a resistant professor, was arrested there in 1944 and died in deportation. The high school celebrates its significant anniversaries, such as the centenary of its independence in 1964 or the three-hundredth anniversary of the Mansart Pavilion in 1998.

Today, Michelet High School, surrounded by a 17-hectare park, preserves remarkable heritage features: a desacralized chapel, a rose garden, glass pyramids inspired by Khéops, and undergrounds that are now inaccessible. Its sports facilities, among the most comprehensive in France, include a swimming pool, gymnasiums, a climbing wall and a historic rugby field, abandoned in 2001. The site remains a cinematic location, as for Microbe and Gasoil (2015) by Michel Gondry.

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