Lycée Gambetta, Historic high school in France

Lycée Gambetta occupies the former Jesuit college buildings in Cahors, opened in 1604. Its brick bell tower rises 34 metres, 17 of them above the rooflines; square at its base, it becomes octagonal and rests on the first bay of the chapel. The tower was built by architect Antoine Chassagnard under a 1676 contract worth 100 livres.

The school occupies the site of the Jesuit college opened in 1604, successor to the 14th-century collège Saint-Michel; the Jesuits taught there until a 1762 ruling of the Parlement de Toulouse banned them. It became a Collège Royal in 1765, declined during the Revolution, and was replaced in 1796 by the École Centrale du Lot, converted into a lycée in 1803 with 60,000 francs from Joachim Murat. It was renamed lycée Gambetta by decree of President Sadi Carnot in 1888, and in 1974 became a collège, taking the name collège Gambetta in 1977.

The name honours Léon Gambetta, a native of Cahors who organised resistance to the German invasion of 1870; a decree by President Sadi Carnot gave the school his name in 1888. The brick bell tower, 34 m high with 17 m above the roofline, follows the regional tradition of brick belfries and rests on the first bay of the chapel, square at the base then octagonal.

Since 1977 the former boys' lycée has been the Collège Gambetta, teaching pupils from the sixth to the third form (ages 11 to 15). The mixed lycée of the town centre is now the Lycée Clément-Marot, which was previously the girls' lycée. The tower, the chapel and the salle de déclamation are protected as monuments historiques, so they are best seen from the street outside school hours.

The clock tower, 34 metres high with 17 metres above the roofline, was built by the Jesuits under a 1676 contract with Cahors architect Antoine Chassagnard for 100 livres. Gustave Larroumet, a former pupil and director of the Beaux-Arts, had it classified as a monument historique on 12 August 1891.