This Monday, June 26, 2023, third-grade students passed the first test of the patent: that of French. In three hours, from 9 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., they had to analyze a text and an image, answer grammar questions, write an essay and a dictation.

Worth 5 points on the total French mark, the dictation concerned a text of approximately 600 characters, the theme of which is linked to the French corpus and the difficulty is based on the orthographic expectations of the programs. It lasted 20 minutes.

This year, the dictation of the college diploma corresponded to an extract from Histoire demavie by George Sand (1855). Story of my life is the autobiography of the famous author with nearly 100 works (novels, stories, plays).

George Sand began writing this river autobiography when she was only 44 years old. The reason ? Since her separation from her husband, she needs money to raise her two children alone, according to François Busnel, cultural journalist and former presenter of La Grande Librairie. However, a businessman buys the rights to Histoire demavie for a colossal sum, which would correspond today to 400,000 euros.

Although it is George Sand’s masterpiece, Histoire demavie received a mixed reception from its contemporaries. The critics hoped for indiscretions on the multiple adventures of this woman who dressed as a man, smoked a lot and rubbed shoulders with all the big names of her time. Against all odds, George Sand remained discreet and preferred to tell the story of her ancestors, descendants of the King of Poland and the Marshal of Saxony.

The excerpt on which the dictation of the patent of the colleges related concerns the childhood memories of the author. Test your spelling and grammar knowledge in our slideshow below.