Editing Gaspard Monge (section)

== Early life ==
Monge was born at [[Beaune]], [[Côte-d'Or]], the son of a merchant.  He was educated at the college of the [[Oratory of Jesus|Oratorians]] at [[Beaune]].<ref name="EB1911" /> In 1762 he went to the [[Collège-lycée Ampère|Collège de la Trinité]] at [[Lyon]], where, one year after he had begun studying, he was made a teacher of [[physics]]<ref name=EB1911/> at the age of seventeen.<ref name= "StA">{{cite web|url= http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Monge.html|publisher= School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland |first1= O'Connor and  |last1=J.J. |last2=Robertson  |first2=E.F. |title=Gaspard Monge |access-date=26 March 2012 }}</ref>

After finishing his education in 1764 he returned to Beaune, where he made a large-scale plan of the town, inventing the methods of observation and constructing the necessary instruments; the plan was presented to the town, and is still preserved in their library.<ref name=EB1911/> An officer of engineers who saw it wrote to the commandant of the [[École royale du génie de Mézières|École Royale du Génie]] at [[Charleville-Mézières|Mézières]], recommending Monge to him and he was given a job as a [[technical drawing|draftsman]].<ref name=EB1911/> [[L. T. C. Rolt]], an engineer and historian of technology, [[Engineering drawing#History|credited Monge with the birth of engineering drawing]].<ref name="Rolt1957">{{Citation |last=Rolt |first=L.T.C. |author-link=L. T. C. Rolt |year=1957 |title=Isambard Kingdom Brunel: A Biography |publisher=Longmans Green |lccn=57003475 |postscript=.|title-link=Isambard Kingdom Brunel }}</ref> When in the Royal School, he became a member of a [[Freemasonry]], initiated into [[L’Union Parfaite|″L’Union parfaite″]] lodge.<ref>Alain Queruel, Les franc-maçons de l'Expédition d'Egypte (Editions du Cosmogone, 2012). Snezana Lawrence et Mark McCartney, Mathematicians and their Gods : Interactions between mathematics and religious beliefs (OUP Oxford, 2015). Emmanuel Pierrat et Laurent Kupferman, Le Paris des Francs-Maçons (Le Cherche Midi, 2013)</ref>