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The Académie Française – Its Foundation by Richelieu – Its Constitution – The “Forty-first Chair.”

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, is to be found in Bayle; but you must know where to look for it. He worked fourteen hours a day, and died without having time to think of the French Academy, whence, in any case, his free unorthodox opinions would certainly have excluded him.

VI. Regnard, the best French comedy writer after Molière, was too much occupied with his own work and with amusing himself to dream of joining the French Academy, where, moreover, by reason of his loose life, he had but little chance of being elected.

VII. J. B. Rousseau, who in the days before André Chénier, Béranger, Victor Hugo, and Alfred de Musset was justly regarded as the first lyric poet of France, did not belong to the Academy. He left Paris, it is true, for some scandalous verses attributed to him, but which he was never proved to have written; and he died in exile.

VIII. Vauvenargues – always to be remembered by the finest of his many fine thoughts, “les grandes pensées viennent du cœur” – died young, so that the Academy may be said not to have had time to elect him.

IX. Lesage, author of “Gil Blas” and of several comedies, married the daughter of a carpenter, which might well have told against his election. But his exclusion from the Academy is generally attributed to his having failed to write a tragedy.

X. The Abbé Prévost, author of “Manon Lescaut,” was not a member of the Academy; and it is quite possible that the fact of his having written “Manon Lescaut” may have kept him out.

XI. Piron, already mentioned as the author of a famous epigram against the Academy, was really elected to it. But to be valid, the election had to be confirmed by the sovereign, and Louis XV. would not ratify the Academy’s choice. “What are the emoluments of the place?” asked the king; and being told that an academician received, by way of honorarium, one thousand francs annually, he assigned to Piron a pension for that amount.

XII. Jean Jacques Rousseau was never asked to join the Academy, nor did he ever show any wish to belong to it.

XIII. Diderot was naturally not an academician.

XIV. Mably, the learned and vigorous publicist, who, before socialism had been formulated into a creed, put forth socialistic views, replied to many persons who urged him to become a candidate for academical honours: “If I were a member of the Academy people would perhaps say, ‘Why does he belong to it?’ I would rather hear them say, ‘Why does he not belong to it?’”

XV. The poet, André Chénier, one of the victims of the Revolution, was never a member of the French Academy; nor was Mirabeau (XVI.), nor Camille Desmoulins (XVII.).

XVIII. Beaumarchais not only wrote brilliant comedies, but took part in all kinds of speculations, some of them hazardous; and it may be for this reason, but possibly also because he was looked upon as only a playwright, that he was never asked to join the Academy. Neither Chamfort (XIX.) nor Rivarol (XX.) were Academicians. Lamennais, who, from the infallibility of the Pope passed to the infallibility of the people, was never a member of the Academy.

Women are not admitted to the Academy, or Mme. de Lefayette, Mme. Dacier, Mme. Cotin, Mme. de Stael, perhaps even the most illustrious of them all, George Sand, might have been academicians. Scarcely, however, George Sand.

In ancient days a dramatist seems to have had no chance of being elected to the Academy unless he had produced tragedies. Corneille, Racine, Voltaire, were all academicians, whereas Molière, Regnard, and Lesage were all excluded. The modern Academy has shown itself less prejudiced. Scribe was a member of the Academy, and so is Labiche, who, in a smaller way, may be regarded as the Molière of our time.

Suppressed, as too aristocratic, under the Revolution, the Academy came to life again as a literary branch of the Institute, and under the First Empire resumed a more independent existence in something like its old historic form. Since its revival it has traversed the Empire, the Restoration, the reign of Louis Philippe, the Republic of 1848, and the Second Empire. Finding itself sufficiently in accord with the three first governments, and tolerating the Republic of 1848, the Academy objected, it would seem, to the Second Empire; in proof of which it need only be mentioned that not one of Napoleon III.’s political men was ever admitted to the Academy. This literary society has now had time enough to get accustomed to the Third Republic, which has lasted in France longer than any governmental system since the downfall of the ancient Monarchy.

The Academy has plenty of funds at its disposal, arising from donations made to it at one time or another, and it receives annually from the state a sum of 85,000 francs. It awards prizes for eloquence and prizes for poetry; prizes for virtue (the celebrated “priz Monthyon”) and prizes for the best work of fiction, regarded from a literary, artistic, and moral point of view. This prize was adjudged to M. Alphonse Daudet for his “Fromont jeune et Risler ainé,” of which the moral tendency would not, perhaps, be obvious to everyone, though as a rule the works crowned by the Academy are such as a careful girl might safely allow her own mother to read. A prize of 20,000 francs was voted to M. Thiers for his “History of the Consulate and of the Empire,” but the money was returned by the grateful historian on the understanding that the interest it produced should be given annually as a prize for the best essay on some historical subject. A prize of 4,800 francs, founded by Dr. Toirac, is given annually for the best comedy in verse or prose played during the previous year at the Théâtre Français; and M. Louis Langlois, a famous writer of Latin elegiacs, has founded an annual prize of 1,500 francs for the best translation in verse or prose of a Greek, Latin, or other foreign work.