Most of all, through the difficult revolutionary years and multiple throes, hazards and harassments during the French Revolution, he contrived in keeping open the Lycée Louis-le-Grand throughout the period, a unique case for institutions of that type.
The "collège Louis-le-Grand" happened in the three decades preceding the French Revolution to be the mold of education of will-be prime players in that world-changing period: universally-known Maximilien Robespierre and Camille Desmoulins, but also Pierre Henri Hélène Marie Lebrun-Tondu[1][2][3] (later known as Minister of Foreign Affairs of the First French Republic, from August 1792 till June 1793, under the name of LEBRUN or of LEBRUN-TONDU), all born, like Jean-François Champagne, in the 1750s and early 1760s decade, underwent there most of their education, but as well many promising students with high hopes and perspectives in the sciences, who for example later on joined the Observatoire de Paris, that entertained several research departments of various types (including Mathematics), under the lead of the successive Cassinis, for the which careers "Louis-le-Grand" was a kind of antechamber.
The site is requisitioned at several occasions and for diverse purposes, even serving as a jail for part of its premises in 1793; notwithstanding all hazards and all enmities and attempts at appropriation, Jean-François Champagne succeeds in keeping the school open for a remainder of students (the older ones have been sent to join the Revolutionary Army on a variety of locations from 1792 on even as late as 1796!)
Tuition and education become again a priority of the State; Louis-le-Grand becomes the model of all high school levels institutions according to the new concepts introduced under the Consulate and Empire early years, and becomes designated as “le Prytanée Français”; former pupils are become themselves teachers and Heads of like establishments that sprout out in all large cities, the “lycées impériaux”.
Widely recognized, Jean-François Champagne moves from survival mode to model firmness, order and method, and lords undisputed for an additional 10 years over the revamped Louis-le-Grand, where discipline and application to work are become master words.