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 BOTANICAL. 



TEXT OF THE CHARTER OF THE ACADEMIE ROYALE 



DE BELGIQUE, TRANSLATED FROM THE ORIGINAL 



IN THE ARCHIVES OF THE ACADEMIE AT 



BRUSSELS. 



By A. E. Kennelly. 



Received December 22, 1922. Presented June 8, 1922. 



As one of the delegates of the American Academy of Arts and 

 Sciences to the celebration in Brussels, on May 23-24, 1922, of the 

 150th anniversary of the founding of the Academie Royale de Belgique, 

 the writer had the opportunity of seeing the charter displayed on that 

 occasion, under a glass case, in the Belgian Academy Building. This 

 royal charter, with its appended great red wax seal 14 cm. in diameter, 

 is a remarkable document in many ways, and possesses a wonderful 

 history. It is written in beautiful French script. It is perhaps the 

 only charter granted to a learned society, which conveys to the 

 members of the same the rights of nobility, by virtue of their election. 

 This prerogative seems to have been enjoyed by the academicians of 

 Brussels until shortly after the French revolution. 



By the kindness of the courteous Academy Secretary, the writer 

 was permitted to examine the charter in detail and to make a copy of 

 its main text, a translation of which is here offered. It will be remem- 

 bered that the empress Maria Theresa, who bestowed this charter, 

 was one of the most remarkable royal personages of the eighteenth 

 century. One of her daughters, the ill-fated Marie Antoinette, a 

 princess seventeen years old at the Court of Vienna when this charter 

 was signed, became Queen of France and perished under the guillotine 

 during the Reign of Terror, on what is now the Place de la Concorde 

 at Paris. 



Maria Theresa, by the Grace of God, Dowager Empress of the 

 Romans, Queen of Hungary, of Bohemia, of Dalmatia, of Croatia, of 

 Esclavonia, etc., iVrchduchess of Austria, Duchess of Burgundy, of 

 Lothier, of Brabant, of Limburg, of Luxemburg, of Guelders, of Milan, 

 of Styria, of Carinthia, of Carniola, of Mantua, of Parma and Plais- 

 ance, of Guastalle, of Wirtemburg, of High and Low Silesia, etc., 



