 When the Germans began their occupation of France in June 1940, Deleuze’s family was on vacation in Normandy, and he spent a year being schooled there. Deleuze traced his initiation into literature and philosophy to his encounter with a teacher at Deauville named Pierre Halbwachs (son of the sociologist Maurice Halbwachs), who introduced him to writers such as Gide and Baudelaire. Early on, he recalled, philosophical concepts struck him with the same force as literary characters, having their own autonomy and style. After the Liberation, Deleuze returned to Paris and undertook his khâgne (an intensive year of preparatory studies) at the well-known Lycée Henri IV, and then studied the history of philosophy at the Sorbonne. He was taught by Jean Hippolyte and Ferdinand Alquié, whom he “loved and admired enormously,” as well as by Georges Canguilhem and Maurice de Gandillac. Like many of his peers he was as influenced by the writings of Jean-Paul Sartre as he was by the work of his academic mentors.