‘[…] Who would not have admired the dainty neatness of their dress, their sweet, childish voices, the grace of their movements, the promise in their faces, the innate something that told of careful training from the cradle? They seemed as if they had never shed tears nor wailed like other children. Their mother knew, as it were, by electrically swift intuition, the desires and the pains which she anticipated and relieved […] the ordered, simple, and regular life best suited for a child’s education.’
Honoré de Balzac, La Grenadière, 1832 (Translation Ellen Marriage)
Madame Willemsens, the heroine of La Grenadière, raises her two young sons alone. Despite the illness that weakens her, she fully takes charge of their education (hygiene, morals, discipline) and their instruction (basic knowledge complemented by classes with tutors). In the early 19th century, school was not considered the be-all end-all of education. The figure of the loving and virtuous mother as the sole educator remained the ideal to which polite society aspired. In rural areas, reticence towards schoolmasters who would give children a taste for books and idleness was even stronger. Throughout the century, laws and ordinances were promulgated in order to expand public education, which became secular, and was made once again obligatory in 1882 under Minister Jules Ferry.
