Ecole libre Saint-François Régis: Les Congréganistes

Figure 1.--Les Congréganistes is a mixed age group. The boys wear long pants, knickers, and short pants. The youngest boy sitting in the front wears English-style school sandals. They all wear suits, but only the oldest boys wear ties.

I'm not sure what this group was. The photograph was marked "Les Congréganistes". It looks to be boys from the middle forms of the school, but there are some younger boys. It looks like some have won a kind of award.

The Group

The group "Les Congréganistes" appears to be a mixed age group, although it does not appear to include the youngest boys. Many wears ribbons, presumably prizes they won for some accomplishment. I'm not sure why some have medals and others do not.

A French contributor to HBC reports that the dictionary indicates that a congéganiste is a congregant i.e. a member of a congregation. Une congrégation is a congregation i.e. a religious community or an assembly of persons who meet for worship and religious instruction. In a catholic college this group is probably composed of a carefully selected group of pupils.

The French contributor reports that he has never been a pupil in a Catholic school, nor do he know anyone who was, but by reading novels and seeing movies or TV movies, he has some information to offer. To incourage pupils, the Catholic schools organize some elite clubs where a few pupils (the best ones) are selected to be members. It can be music, even sport but the best ones are The Academy copied upon the French Academy where members can read their best poems, essays, generally speak of "les belles lettres" i.e. humanities and literature and above all the congragation where members can discuss about the Bible and that kind of religious matters. These members are supposed to be an elite, pretigious group. To help create that image, the members are allowed some perks: going to the congragation or the Academy when the others are in bed or in study, maybe some better food from time to time. Well, one can imagine. And I suppose the best of the best is to give them an honorary sign, something to distinguish them from the others such a sash.

In an American school this would be referred to as an honor society, but the two are no identical because an American honor society is based solely on academics. Also academics does not have the same prestige among the other students as it does in more academically oriented France. (In America prestige among students often comes from athletics.) Also the French congregation is not purely academic, but has a strong religious component as well.

Clothing

As Les Congréganistes is a mixed age group, all the different types of clothing worn by the boys appears in this group. The boys wears suits with long pants, knickers and short pants. The older boys wear eldegant dark suits with ties. Only one boy can be seen with a knicker suit, but there are probably others. Notice how long and baggy the knickers are. The younger boys wear short pants suits. The boy second from the left is the younger boy in the Retoric class where almost all of the boys, who are older than he, wear long pants. Some of the boys wear short pants suits while others wear a blazer or sports jacket weith shorts. Notice the one boy at the left wearing a dark blazer and white short pants. One sitting in front wears Englsh school sandals. All of the boys in knickers and shorts wear kneesocks.

Figure 2.--Notice the awards many of the boys wear. The ribbons appear to be unique. Also notice the English-style school sandals the younger boy sitting on the ground is wearing.

Created: December 2, 1999
Last updated: December 2, 1999