Descartes studied at the Jesuit college of La Flèche, "one of the most famous schools in Europe,"¹ for about eight and half years probably from Easter day of 1607 to September 1615. Named after Henri IV, the Collège Henri IV de La Flèche was planned under the king's patronage in 1603, and actually began to receive students at the end of 1604. The school was built as a college for externs, one of a type designed principally for students not of the Jesuit Order. Both Henri and the Jesuits hoped the students there, chosen from the French elite, would be loyal both to the French monarchy and to the Catholic Church. Descartes, from a family which would qualify as noblesse de robe, was one of those students who were expected to "mount the stage of the theater of the world"² and play an essential role in French society.