Romain Rolland (Clamecy, 1866-Vezelay, 1944) studied in the Normal High School, in which later he was professor of History of the Art. His pacifist character led him to exile to Switzerland during the Great War; From there he wrote his famous and controversial essay Au-dessus de la mêlée (Above the Conflict), from 1915. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915. In 2010, Cliff published his biography Life of Tolstoy.