1-344-588 - Art Media/Heritage Images

Ball celebrating a century of the polytechnic school, Trocadero, Paris, 1894. The first of the officer training schools in France was the École Polytechnique (Polytechnic School) founded in Paris in 1794. Transformed by Napoleon into a military school, it has been the source of most of the officers in the French army. An illustration from Le Petit Journal, 28th May 1894.