Bordeaux born and bred, little François Mauriac was born in the city on the 11th October 1885, in the rue du Pas Saint Georges.
 
It was among the noises and odours of this lively riverside city and port that François Maurillac grew up. However it was a city that he would soon have to leave due to its extreme conservatism and opposition to any form of creation, at odds with his great sensibility.
 
Thus the little school boy, when separated from his mother, Claire Mauriac, even for a moment, in the children's garden of the rue du Mirail, suffered greatly.
 
The strict education he received from brothers from the "college across the street", and his deeply catholic bourgeois upbringing did not preserve him from the the struggle he lived with; between his material love of life, and the deep love for God that became so important to him.
 
After the period between his childhood and adolescence, François Mauriac left rue Vital Carles and the old mansion on rue Margaux, and set his sights upon the great river, source of so much hope to him :

Travel abroad, leave Bordeaux and say farewell to one's adolescence !