# La Tache noire ou La leçon de géographie.

- By: Albert Bettannier
- Date: created 1887
- Classification: Painting
- Credit line: Google Arts & Culture — the-geography-lesson-or-the-black-spot-albert-bettannier/ZgFOicMOQxKIHg
- Museum: [Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Geography_Lesson_or_%22The_Black_Spot%22.jpg)
- Rights: Public domain
- Picture: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d9/The_Geography_Lesson_or_%22The_Black_Spot%22.jpg/1920px-The_Geography_Lesson_or_%22The_Black_Spot%22.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Pointing towards the lost French lands of Alsace-Lorraine in French classroom. In addition to moral and civic instruction, which had replaced moral and religious education courses, the law of 1882 in France established 'military exercises for boys' and 'needlework for girls'. On the painting, Alsace-Moselle is depicted in black. The pupil's uniform (that of the school battalion), the school merit cross displayed on the breast of the model student, the drum next to the teacher's desk, the racked training rifles, symbolise the national military training in force for boys in France at the time.