THE ACADÉMIE FRANÇAISE.
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.”[A]
[A] Nothing was wanting to his glory; he was wanting to ours.
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.
[Illustration: THE DOME OF THE PANTHÉON, SPIRE OF ST. ÉTIENNE DU MONT,
AND TOUR DE CLOVIS.]
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.
[Illustration]