Need to know about education in France during the 17th century?

Question:I know about schools in France in today's society but I need to know how the education system was during the 1600's. I also need to know how ones education influenced the outcome of their life. (i.e what social class they ended up in, special treatment, rich vs. poor etc.)
Every little tid bit of information helps, thanks!

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: I know about schools in France in today's society but I need to know how the education system was during the 1600's. I also need to know how ones education influenced the outcome of their life. (i.e what social class they ended up in, special treatment, rich vs. poor etc.)
Every little tid bit of information helps, thanks!

Social class influenced education rather than vice-versa. The nobles received a pretty good education, people whose parents had a trade were apprenticed in that trade and expected to pursue it (or else join the army) and the lowest classes (the "sans culottes" as they would be known in the French Revolution) no education whatsoever--their lot in life was to be farmers or farm laborers. Unless a child was very intelligent and could enter the Church, where advancement was to some extent based on merit, or had a lot of talent in some particular area, there was no chance of changing one's social class, which was determined by who your parents were.

Here's how King Louis XIV was educated: he had a tutor who supervised a number of people who taught him mathematics, writing, Spanish, Italian, drawing, fencing, horse-back riding, and dancing. He also learned French and some Latin--he had to learn French as many of the people around him spoke French badly--his mother was Spanish and his main advisor an Italian.

Noble boys would have had a similar education, which would teach them military skills and how to behave at Court (which were the two functions of the nobility. I believe all education was by private tutor in those days, except, again, in the Church, where the education would have been more in Latin, languages, writing, mathematics and less in the military skills of fencing and horse-back riding. The daughters of the nobility probably more like a Church education but with dancing included.