Remembering times past at Sorbonne anniversary

It wasn't like this when I was here 21 years ago. The French Education Minister, Mr Claude Allegre, pulled out all the stops to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the Sorbonne this week. Hussars of the Republican Guard in knee-high black boots, gleaming crested helmets and blue, red and gold uniforms lined the marble staircase to the grand amphitheatre.

How many times had I straggled in to an 8 a.m. lecture to contemplate, bleary-eyed, Puvis de Chavanne's allegorical painting of The Sacred Wood, with the Sorbonne sitting Virgin Mary-like at the centre, surrounded by the classical figures of Eloquence, Poetry, History and Science? The amphitheatre has received a face-lift since the hot June day in 1977 when I received my diploma in French civilisation, along with a now worn History of French Literature bearing the fading stamp hommage de l'editeur.

Today, the gold leaf is brighter, and there is new green damask wallpaper in the upstairs alcoves, but the statues of Robert de Sorbon, Descartes, Pascal - haughtily reading a paper - Richelieu et al still look a little dusty.

We didn't have all this pomp for our modest graduation; the rows of hedges across the stage, the podium covered with leaves, classical musicians to break the monotony of four hours of speeches, Jack Lang - mockingly called France's "Minister of Culture for Life" - chatting with guests in the front rows. But some things never change at the Sorbonne. France's oldest university combines grandeur with a lack of creature comforts. The amphitheatre is still unventilated, the acoustics terrible. The benches are as hard as they were in my student days, and you have to perch your notebook on your knees to write.

Less than a decade after May 1968, my Sorbonne days were studious to the point of dullness. Not once, around the grimy machines that spat out tiny plastic cups of viscous black coffee did I and my classmates discuss politics. But France's last revolution was very much on the minds of the professors in their black, purple, red and yellow robes. "Thirty years ago today, the ambience in this amphitheatre was much more animated," Mr Yves Jegouzou, the head of the Conference of Presidents of Universities of Paris, recalled to the audience's laughter.

Indeed. The revolutionary students made the Sorbonne their headquarters and the night of May 24th, when two people were killed in Paris and Lyon, was the most violent. In the Latin Quarter alone, 1,200 square metres of paving stones were torn up, 72 trees chopped down, 48 cars burned. The police station nearest to the Sorbonne was besieged by rioters and the cops inside had to be evacuated by reinforcements. One young civil servant who longed to join the fray was Lionel Jospin, now France's Prime Minister. After finishing work at the Foreign Ministry he would wander down to the Luxembourg Gardens to savour the scent of tear gas. Many of Mr Jospin's friends and colleagues, now French newspaper editors and government officials, regard the chaos of May 1968 with somewhat puzzling nostalgia.

Clashes between town and gown have been a recurring theme in the Sorbonne's history. In 1200, five students were killed in riots that started when an innkeeper beat up a student. The king sided with the students and placed them under the authority of the bishops. In 1229, further clashes led to an exodus of students to Toulouse and Oxford. To resolve the conflict, a papal bull granted the University of Paris special status. Until it was shut down by the revolution in 1791 - to be reopened by Napoleon 15 years later - the university would be tugged back and forth between papal and temporal authorities.

As a result of May 1968, the University of Paris was divided into 13 different universities, four of which are still squeezed into the city block-size maze of the Sorbonne. Its only campus is the Latin Quarter, whose cinemas, cafes, museums and metro stations were as much a part of my education as the lectures.

After 21 years, I remember my professors better than the texts we studied. Madame Cadiot, a patient, granny-like lady with a chignon, taught grammar. Monsieur Truffet, a small figure with twinkling eyes, took mischievous pleasure in citing Moliere. One of my examiners had the magnificent name of Madeleine Eristov Gengis-Khan. But the professor who left the deepest impression was Jacqueline Capelle-Lucien, who directed my thesis on SaintExupery.

Madame Lucien would drift into the Sorbonne in clouds of Guerlain perfume, teetering on her high-heeled shoes and weighed down with jewellery. She was a beauty of indeterminate age, and her bleached hair and make-up contrasted with the austerity of the other professors. Modern literature was her subject, but mostly she regaled us with the love affairs of famous politicians and writers. Sometimes she invited me and other students to lunch at her home in the 16e arrondissement. Her husband, a one-legged war hero, rarely spoke, and her dove grey pet whippet had his own chair at table.

I was thinking of Madame Lucien while the British, German and Italian education ministers were having ermine-trimmed togas draped on their shoulders. When the ceremonies closed with Beethoven drinking songs, one verse seemed to suit the academics with their May 1968 nostalgia, and my own reminiscences: "Wine! Till the dreams of youth again are near me/Why must they leave me, tell me, why?"