Institution Saint-Michel

Archangel Michael reaching to save souls in purgatory, by Jacopo Vignali, 17th century

• The Russian Orthodox community established in Le Cateau-Cambresis was yearly invited to celebrate a mass of Byzantine Rite which differed with the Roman Rite in that they were two-hour-long services with songs in Russian without organ accompaniment, the consuming oscillating censers were held at the end of imposing chains and communion was under both species, bread and wine.
• From the 1940s to the 1960s, on 24 December, students would be waking up to canticles and hymns through loud-speakers and would be treated to an ameliorated breakfast with brioche and hot chocolate.
• Carols such as Stille Nacht, Heilige Nacht! or classics from German musicologist Michael Praetorius' (1571–1621) Syntagma Musicum (1614-1620) and Hymnodia Sionia (1611; Advent: 5. Alvus tumescit virginis & Christmas: 26. A solis ortus cardine; 27. Summo Parenti gloria), would be sang during the Midnight Mass. The Christmas Day was really a holiday. After the Low Mass and the Solemn Mass, students were gifted an improved meal with baptized wine.[7]

From the 1940s to the 1970s, students were alternately required to chant or read aloud from the official academic corpora unanimously agreed upon by the institution's on-site officiating abbots and priests. They were standing in front of a lectern in the small refectory and the dining hall on which books were placed following liturgical traditions. Being designated cantor or precentor was also used as punishment for misbehaving pupils. Main works were:

• General Baron de Marbot's Memoirs (1891) by Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcellin Marbot (18 August 1782 – 16 November 1854).[8]

Each year, Saint-Michel’s students commemorate the Armistice of May 8, 1945 but also the bombing of Solesmes on May 9, 1944 which greatly impacted the institution. From February to June 1944, the Allies intensified their destructive efforts on roads and rails to isolate the Normandy landings and to dupe the Germans into believing that this landing would take place in the nearer Pas-de-Calais. General Eisenhower encapsulated those successful bombings "as the greatest contribution to the success of Overlord” (June 6, 44). On May 9, 1944; the 416th Bomb Group successfully destroyed the Aarschot railway station between Brussels and Antwerp with several Douglas Boston III Havocs each carrying four 250-kg bombs and the 409th Bomb Group caused death and destruction in Solesmes with the same equipment. On May 9, at around 8:15 am, the air alert loud sirens prompted all children who went to school to go back home and around 10:15, two explosions were heard as four bombs were accidentally detached from the freight deck of an aircraft and landed on the Chemin de Vertigneulof the Institution Saint-Michel causing the first victims. A fifth bomb will not explode and will be destroyed a few days later by the Germans, near Chant des Oiseaux. Seventy bombs exploded in the city-center killing fifty-eight people including twenty-two children and the destruction of ninety-seven buildings while the wounded were transferred to the hospital of Le Cateau. The town of Solesmes received the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France). Historians revealed that it was the train station that was targeted with its ramifications to the sugar refinery and the electro-tubes. The American airmen had orders; when they were not carrying out their mission; to drop their bombs on secondary targets. Moreover, at 3500 m altitude the accuracy of a shot was 1 km but there was barely 500 meters between the station and the city-center.[9]

The Institution Saint-Michel has long established exchange partnerships with education centers from across the Western world including with the:[10]

•  United States: Patrick Henry High School in San Diego, California.[11][12]
•  United States: Hampshire Regional High School in Westhampton, Massachusetts.
•  United Kingdom: Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) in Leeds.
•  Germany: Goethe-Gymnasium in Düsseldorf.
•  Poland: 2nd High School of Mikołaj Kopernik in Cieszyn (Poland).[13][14][15]

• In their first years, Saint-Michel students go on 'Green Classes' which are educational retreats where students alternate classes and outdoor activities (horseback ri, ding, hiking, climbing, caving, canoeing, boating or fishing) for a period of few weeks.
• Saint-Michel regularly hosts Canadian, American, Japanese and South-Korean young people as foreign language tutors in residence.
• Many excursions are organized for exchange partner students such as to the Louvre and Library of the National Assembly in Paris, the Lace Museum in Caudry, the Commonwealth site of Le Quesnoy, Le Touquet-Paris-Plage, the Matisse Museum in Le Cateau-Cambrésis or the Museum of Fine Arts of Valenciennes. With regards to language and cultural fieldtrips, Saint-Michel students usually go to Leeds, Rome, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, London, Berlin and Florence.
• Historical fieldtrips and educational getaways include the Mémorial de Caen war memorial in Normandy, the Douaumont Ossuary; the city of Verdun and its trenches; the Lewarde mining center; Juno, Omaha & Utah Beaches Museums; the Pegasus Bridge; the D-Day museum among many others.
• For those undertaking the 'Theatre Studies Pathway', Pr. Frédéric Valet organizes myriad excursions to plays including at the Théâtre de Cambrai, the Théâtre du Marais or the Opéra Bastille while devising and putting productions on in Chti or Picard with students.
• In June 2018, Saint-Michel's students were awarded for their participation in the National Contest for the Defense and Illustration of the French language organized by the members association of the Order of Academic Palms (French: Ordre des Palmes académiques).[16]
• During the summer holidays, the Saint-Michel infrastructures host the children summer camps convened by the Communauté de communes du Pays Solesmois and it has also hosted the École Saint-Joseph (Solesmes)'s end-of-the-year show for over twenty-five years as of 2018.