Braudel was born in Luméville-en-Ornois (as of 1943, merged with and part of Gondrecourt-le-Château), in the département of the Meuse, France. His father, who was a natural mathematician, aided him in his studies. Braudel also studied a good deal of Latin and a little Greek. At the age of 7, his family moved to Paris. Braudel was educated at the Lycée Voltaire and the Sorbonne, where at the age of 20 he was awarded an "agrégé" in history. While teaching at the University of Algiers between 1923 and 1932, he became fascinated by the Mediterranean Sea and wrote several papers on the Spanish presence in Algeria in the 16th century. During this time, Braudel began his doctoral thesis on the foreign policy of King Philip II of Spain. From 1932 to 1935 he taught in the Paris "lycées" (secondary schools or high schools) of Pasteur, Condorcet, and Henri-IV.