GAULLE Charles de. 2 autograph manuscripts signed, Composition d'Histoire, [1908]; 10 and 11 pages large in-8. Two history papers, on the Ancien Régime and the War of 1870, written at the Collège Stanislas, in preparatory classes for Saint-Cyr. The compositions, signed "Charles de Gaulle" at the top, are annotated and commented on in pencil by the teacher. Provincial administration under the Ancien Régime. New administrative institutions created by the Constituent Assembly. How they functioned. Their transformation under the revolutionary government. "One of the clearest characteristics of the French Revolution was the considerable extension of municipal and local life in the country. Under the old regime, this life did not exist, and on the other hand, the administration emanating from the central power was as outdated and incomplete as possible". The composition is divided into three parts: I Provincial administration under the Ancien Régime; II Administrative institutions created by the Constituent Assembly; III Transformation under the revolutionary government. Conclusion: "The study of the administrative transformations from 1789 to 1795 reveals the principle that excessive centralisation, made even more cumbersome by an outdated system of administration and an almost total absence of local life, was followed by excessive decentralisation. This decentralisation, which was above all federalist in nature, was not useless on the whole, but a particularly dangerous state of affairs for the nation and a desire for dictatorship on the part of the only real power at the time: the Convention brought about a new centralising movement under the revolutionary government, all the more so because France, a united and homogeneous nation, could not live with too great an absence of cohesion". At the top, the professor noted: "Ds l'ensemble bien vu et clair[emen]t disposé surtout les 2 1st parties, la 3e + confuse. A few unnecessary parts. Overall satisfactory result". The mark obtained was 15, and the copy was marked "1r" in red pencil. The Treaty of Frankfurt and the European consequences of the 1870-1871 war. "Along with the treaties of 1815, and like them to the disadvantage of France, the Treaty of Frankfurt is the international agreement that most profoundly altered the balance of Europe and the position of each of the powers both internally and externally. As well as establishing the definitive foundation of an Empire of preponderant economic and military power, it relegated France, which had been at the head of European politics for twenty years, to second place and completed the defeat of Austria-Hungary by depriving it of any right to intervene in German affairs. Since the Treaty of Frankfurt, the policy of each of the European powers has been radically altered, and their economic development has undergone the greatest changes. For forty years, the consequences of the treaty have governed the policy of the nations, whether this policy concentrates its efforts on the Continent, as in the case of Austria, or whether it seeks new commercial outlets in the colonies (England, Germany) or a means of regaining an importance and a glory lost in Europe itself (France)". The composition is divided into the following parts: I The armistice and the treaty of Frankfurt; II Direct consequences of the treaty and the war of 1870-1871; III The Alsace-Lorraine question; IV The question of the East. At the beginning, the teacher noted: "You know a lot, but with a few gaps or confusions that would have been easy to avoid. The general interpretation is passable, but it is sketchy on the main question [...] You go too far in examining the consequences". The mark obtained was 15, and the copy was marked "1r" in red pencil. LNC, I, p. 22 and 39.