Old and New Paris: Its History, Its People, and Its Places, v. 2. Edwards Henry Sutherland
justice on the intriguers and charlatans who contrive so often to enlist the suffrages of the public and the favours of journalists. Nowhere is the unity of power more dangerous than in intellectual matters. Intellectual liberty results from contrary forces, unable to absorb one another, and helping by their very rivalry the cause of progress.”
The Institute is composed of five academies. I. The French Academy, founded in 1635 by Richelieu, with forty members, of which mention will afterwards be made in a special article. II. The Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, founded in 1663 by Colbert, with forty titular members, ten free members, eight foreign associates, and fifty correspondents. III. The Academy of Sciences, founded in 1666 by Colbert, with sixty-five titular members, ten free members, eight foreign associates, and ninety-two correspondents. IV. The Academy of Fine Arts, formed between the years 1648 and 1671 by the union of the three academies of sculpture and painting, of music, and of architecture; with forty titular members, ten free members, ten foreign associates, and forty correspondents. V. The Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, with forty titular members, six free members, six foreign associates, and from thirty to forty correspondents.
The Institute is administered by a commission composed of a president, a secretary, and a treasurer, all of them members. Each of the academies has a president and a perpetual secretary. The Academy of Sciences has two perpetual secretaries. The French Academy has a director, a chancellor, and a perpetual secretary. Members of the academies are elected by the members of each of them. Under the Monarchy the election had to be confirmed by the decree of the sovereign; and on two occasions under the Restoration King Louis XVIII. refused to approve the elections of the Academy of Sciences. The French Academy is the only one of the five which enjoys liberty of election. The new member is presented to the chief of the state by the perpetual secretary. In 1852, under the Second Empire, M. Berryer, as a Legitimist, refused to be presented, which was not allowed to invalidate his election.
Every two years the whole body of the Institute is summoned to decree a prize of 20,000 francs, founded by the Emperor Napoleon, for “the work or the discovery most fitted to honour or to serve the country.” On these occasions each of the academies puts forward a candidate, in support of whose claims all the members of the Institute give their suffrages.
Every year, on the 14th of August, the Institute holds a public meeting at which the members of all the academies are invited to attend. The Palace of the Institute, also known as the Palais Mazarin, is the ancient college founded in conformity with one of the clauses of Cardinal Mazarin’s will, and constructed in 1663 on the site of various mansions, including the Hôtel de Nesle, with its famous tower. The Institute possesses a choice, and at the same time copious, library, which is not absolutely free to the public, but to which admission can be obtained by presenting the card of one of the members of the Institute.
CHAPTER XII.
THE ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE
THE French Academy, the most celebrated of the five academies included in the Institute, owes its origin to Cardinal de Richelieu, who had conceived the idea of basing the glory of France not only on the power of her arms, but also on the influence of her language and literature. Men of letters had been accustomed in France, since the time of Ronsard, to assemble periodically for the discussion of literary subjects; and the great minister determined to give to this species of association a regular and legal form. Accordingly, on the 2nd of January, 1635, the newly founded French Academy received letters patent signed by Louis XIII.; when the Parliament, jealous of this new power, refused for two years to register what it looked upon as a parliament of writers. The first task undertaken by the French Academy was to purify and fix the language. This has occupied it more or less fully throughout its existence, though at this moment the best dictionary of the French language is not the one issued by the French Academy, but the dictionary of M. Littré, whom, on the recommendation – one might almost say denunciation – of Monseigneur Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans, the Academy rejected. Apart from its ordinary dictionary, of which six editions have appeared, the first in 1694, the sixth and last in 1835, the Academy has long been at work on a special etymological dictionary, with which, however, it has made but little progress; nor can it be said to have succeeded at any period of its existence in making itself the representative of contemporary literature.
It consisted, from the beginning, of forty members, to each of whom was assigned a particular seat, designated as a “fauteuil” or arm-chair, though, as a matter of fact, the academicians have always sat on benches. On the death of an academician his particular “chair” becomes vacant, and his successor is named by the thirty-nine survivors. Among the first French Academicians appointed in 1634 and 1635 only four names are to be found with which the ordinary student of French literature could be supposed to be well acquainted: those of Voiture (twelfth chair), Vaugelas (fourteenth chair), Balzac (nineteenth chair), and Chapelain (thirty-seventh chair). The modern Balzac, the greatest novelist of France, if not the greatest novelist the world has seen, was never, a member of the Academy; and M. Arsène Houssaye (who will scarcely be invited to become one of the forty “Immortals”) has written a book called “The Forty-first Chair,” in which he shows that throughout the history of the Academy there has always been some writer of the first eminence for whom, if no other could have been offered to him, a forty-first chair should have been found. Voltaire (who in 1747 was elected to the twelfth chair) may be said to have anticipated Arsène Houssaye’s view when he observed that the Academy was an assembly to which noblemen, prelates, eminent lawyers, men of the world, “and even writers” were admitted. As a rule, men of learning have more chance of being elected than men of talent. Birth, moreover, social position, and conduct, count for much. Alexandre Dumas the elder was never asked to join the Academy; and it was understood that if he proposed himself he would not be accepted. For this reason Alexandre Dumas the younger refused for many years, and until his father’s death, to join the Immortals, though he could have been elected long before had he chosen to put himself forward. Originally the French Academy would, on rare occasions, invite a distinguished writer to join its body, but in consequence of some refusals (one of which came from Béranger in the form of a song) it now elects no one who has not first of all asked to be received.
The style of man peculiarly acceptable as a member of the Academy was well described by M. Guizot when one day the merits of a candidate were being discussed in his presence. “I shall vote for him,” said Guizot; “for whatever may be said on the subject, he has the qualities of a true academician; he has a good demeanour, he is very polite, he is decorated, and he has no opinions. I know that he has written a few books, but what of that? A man cannot be perfect.”
To return to M. Arsène Houssaye and his forty-first chair, here are a few of the names by which that absent article of furniture might have been adorned.
I. Descartes, from whom dates, in France at least, true liberty of thought. Great writer as well as profound thinker, the author of the “Discours sur la Méthode,” possessed every qualification for election to the Academy. “Qui benè latuit benè vixit,” however, was his motto, and he was allowed to remain in the obscurity he loved.
II. Pascal, author of the “Lettres Provinciales,” and of the admirable “thoughts” which he did not even think it worth while to put together, troubled himself as little about the Academy as did the Academy about him.
III. Molière, the great comedy-writer, was also an actor, and for that reason, considering the prejudices of the time, could not be admitted to the Academy.
After Molière’s death his bust was placed in the Hall of Meeting, and Saurin wrote this verse in his honour:
Rien ne manque à sa gloire; il manquait à la nôtre.”1
IV. La Rochefoucauld, the famous author of the “Maxims,” would not think of entering the Academy because, as he said, it was impossible for him to make a speech of even a few lines; and an address on being elected, containing a eulogium in honour of the member replaced, is expected from each new academician.
V. The author of the Historical and Critical Dictionary was an academy in himself. Everything, said someone who knew the work,
Nothing was wanting to his glory; he was wanting to ours.