ABSTRACT
Henri Louis Bergson was born in Paris in the Rue Lamartine, not far from the Opera House. He is descended from a prominent Jewish family of Poland, with a blend of Irish blood from his mother's side. In Paris from 1868 to 1878 he attended the Lycee Fontaine, now known as the Lycee Condorcet. The 1881 year he received a teaching appointment at the Lycee in Angers, the ancient capital of Anjou. Two years later he settled at the Lycee Blaise-Pascal in Clermont-Ferrand, chief town of the Puy de Dome department, whose name is more known to motorists than to philosophers. The year after his arrival at Clermont-Ferrand he displayed his ability in "the humanities" by the publication of an excellent edition of extracts from Lucretius, with a critical study of the text and the philosophy of the poet (1884).
