| Chapter 3: | Dupin’s Work and Contributions in His Early Years |
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as it was originally called. However, it was the distinguished geometer Gaspard Monge who is considered to be the father of the school, because he produced the programme of studies in collaboration with the mathematician Jean-Louis. L. Lagrange (1736–1813), the mathematician Jean Baptiste Joseph. Fourier (1768–1830), the chemist Claude Louis. Berthollet (1748–1822), and the celebrated engineer Gaspard-Clair-François-Marie Riche de Prony (1755–1839).
The new institution was to be free and open to any young men who showed potential, but in its first ten years, only 19 percent of the students came from families of sans-culottes (the ‘trouserless ones’, as the very poorest members of society were known by the Revolution). (For details of the early history of the school, see Bradley 1974, 1975, and three 1976 papers). Previously, mathematicians and engineers had received their education at, for example, the Ecole du génie in Mézières, the Ecole militaire in Paris, the Paris Ecole des ponts et chaussées (founded in 1747), the Ecole d’artillerie at Châlons sur Marne, or at the Ecole des élèves ingenieurs constructeurs de vaisseaux (founded in 1765), the forbear of the Génie maritime. The idea of the new school was to unite all of these schools under one roof, which would make such an establishment more easily controllable; it was placed under the auspices of the minister of the interior.
The school began life as the Ecole centrale des travaux publics, and it was not until 1795 that it took the name Ecole polytechnique. In 1805, it was installed in the former Collège de Navarre, where it remained until 1976, when it was transferred to Palaiseau. Although it was in the hands of the minister of the interior, he was obliged to consult the minister of war and education on important issues. In 1799, a conseil de perfectionnement, or council for improvement, was created with the director and members of the teaching staff to establish the programme of studies and to ensure coordination between the Polytechnique and the reestablished specialist engineering schools (it had soon become apparent that these were necessary because it was not possible to create different specialist engineers in one three-year course). Dupin’s year of entry was during the interim period before the school was militarized by Bonaparte