Charlotte now!
They are many things we may agree or desagree about but they are 2 things we know for certain:
-she never finished her studies (she's said it herself)
-she got a mention très bien at her bac philo
So, she probably is not the intellectual wonder they are trying to sell, but she certainly is not a slacker and she certainly is not dumb. You don't get a très bien at the bac if you are not either very intellingent or a hard worker, or maybe both at the same time.
She also took a bac philo and took her prépa classes to study philo at the ENS, so I don't think that she is faking at all when she says she loves philosophy, or that she enjoys reading Seneca. Of course she didn't make any deep philosophic considerations! Or maybe she did, and the journalist, wisely, left them out. She was being interviewed for Vogue, not for a high brow intellectual magazine!
I've been critical with Charlotte many times. But if you get a très bien at your bac and afterward you have the project to enter a prestitgious philosophy institution , you certainly are not a slacker and you certainly are interested by intellectual issues, I dont' know how that can be in doubt.
The only problem I see, is the clumsy and corny PR operation that seems to be going on around Charlotte. So much adoration and amazement around her is silly and ridiculous. They talk of her as if she was Einstein reincarnated. They are trying to present her as a freak of nature:
-come see the most brilliant prépa pupil that french teachers can remember!
-come see the amazing teenager who liked better to sort out an old library than going to the beach!
It's like a circus!
And they are making a curious, interesting and probably intelligent young woman who likes to read and loves novels and philosophy look as a pretentious and silly wanabe (Well, maybe it is Charlotte's fault. maybe she is pretentious).
Now, about her un-finished studies.
I totally desagree with the poster who said that the main reason why you go to the university is to get a job. Sadly, more and more people think like this lately.
But I believe that college is much much more. An important experience in the life of a young person, a place where you meet people from diferent backgrounds, where you learn to make choices, to think by yourself, when you study many useless things that will neverthless shape your mind, a period where you lear more things in the corridors, and thee streets around the buildings that in the classroom, but in any case an experience everyone who can afford it should have.
Yes, Charlotte talks about she thought about getting an agrégation. But for god's sake the girl was 18! Everybody makes plans about the things you think you want in the future and then you change your mind. Maybe she would had get it if she had entered the ENS, maybe not, but it is a very valid life plan!
Now, that's totally speculation on my part, but tha'ts what I think about why Charlotte didn't finish he studies:
-She failed the ENS. That probably make her doubt. If she worked so hard and she failed maybe she wasn't so brilliant as everybody had make her believe.
-Her dream was to study and the ENS. Taking a philosophy course at the Sorbonne didn't have the same appeal. At the ENS you are part of the elite, a brilliant future is open to you if you can grab it. At a philosophy course at the Sorbonne? Well, you are a number, one more student among a bunch of losers (I'm being sarcastic here) who will never get a good job and will end as obscure civil servants somewhere. It's not prestigious, it's not shiny.
-Charlotte had been cocooned her whole life. She was used to a personal relationship with her teachers. Yes, she went to a public school at Fontainebleau, but the public school belonging to Charlotte neighbourhood was frequented by wealthy kids, the sons and daughters of prestigious and high bourgeoisy family, it wasn't any public school. At prépa the courses are still very personal and also most people who get to the prépa schools still come from well-off families. But if you want to continue your studies you can't study philosophy in a private university. No Bocconi or Université Americaine for Philosophers.
She had to enter the real public system, real life, for the first time in her life:
At the Sorbonne she was a number. Nobody cared about her, she had to find her way on her own, and many classes were monotonous and boring. Her career probably lost then part of its appeal.
-Let's not forget: she met Alex! No more, close study-type boyfriend. But long distance boyfriend in London. No doubt that was a distraction, or at least something that atracted her out of Paris.
-Most people won't have a chance to have really interesting job experiences at 20, they don't have the contacts and will only get boring jobs as helpers and trainees. You certainly don't get to write an editorial for The Indepent at 20 years old and without any kind of studies! But for her, it was different.
Charlotte was discouraged with her studies and disappointed. She had signed for a brilliant career of normalienne (because the sycophants around her had made her believe that she was special) and she was faced with a boring and grey career as a high school teacher after many years of studying and taking public exams.
But she had other interests. Publishing interested her. And she had contacts. Brilliant contacts who would allow her to start from the top again and to move to London. And so she did.
I don't have trouble understanding of finding likely reason for her dropping her studies. I just don't think a perfectionist would do it. That's the thing I refuse to buy.
I remember having read that Caroline finisched her GCE a level at the age of 17. Consequenly it makes sense to have effected 4 y in sorbonne and marry insummer of her 21y. Personaly ido not strongly believe that she did so the last year time was too tight preparing wedding etc... But it is not impossible.
That would be extremely weird. The french school system doesn't allow you to skip years easily.
Even nowadays if you have a high IQ it is not that easy for the kid to be allowed to jump a year.
But you the palais official site says so aswell. If someone around here had old magazines from 1974-75 we would really know when she did move to Paris.
