Septembek 4, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



191 



francaise, of the da3^s of Richelieu. The 

 original society entered with enthusiasm upon 

 a course marked out for it by the regulations 

 of the founder. There was no precedent to 

 be followed, no example to be imitated. The 

 local academies in Italy may have suggested 

 some of the statutes. The preparation of a 

 standard dictionar}^, for example, ma}^ have 

 been in imitation of the dictionary Delia 

 Crusca ; but at that period, as now, the 

 French liked to work in accordance with their 

 own ideas of good method. Richelieu re- 

 mained protector of the academy from 1635 

 until his death in 1642; and then, 

 not Cardinal Mazarin, nor the prince 

 of Cond^, both of whom were thought 

 of, but Se- 

 guier, al- 

 ready a 

 member of 

 the acade- 



fell with it as if it were a royal council. When 

 afterwards revived, it was in a humiliated form. 

 Two other academies were instituted in 

 France soon after the French academy, — the 

 Academy of inscriptions and belles-lettres, and 

 the Academy of sciences ; the first-named in 

 1663, and the other in 1666. There was also 

 an Academy of painting founded in 

 1648 ; but it did not take rank 

 with the others, and was sub- 

 sequently reorganized as 

 the Academy of fine iri^ 

 In the provincis 



Fig. 



The Lick obsekvatory. View to_the north-west, "above the clouds. 



my, and the chancellor of France, succeeded 

 to the honor. When he died, the academy, which 

 had grown up to the dignity projected for it by 

 its illustrious founder, invited the king him- 

 self to become its patron ; and the grand mon- 

 arch did not hesitate to add this new jewel to 

 his crown. He gratified the academicians by 

 many tokens of ro3^al favor, — for example, 

 invitations to court entertainments, and a 

 present of forty fauteuils , — and they flattered 

 him with frequent acts of literary obsequious- 

 ness. To Louis XIV. as protector succeeded 

 Louis XV. and Louis XVI. ; and, when the 

 monarchy fell in the revolution, the academy 



also, — at Aries, Nismes, Soissons, Metz, and 

 elsewhere, — local academies, based upon the 

 model of the capital, grew up, and were (in 

 many cases, if not in all) affiliated with one 

 of the academies in Paris. 



The Academy of inscriptions and belles- 

 lettres was at first only a section or committee 

 of the French academy, — four of the members 

 having been selected b}^ the king to decide 

 upon the proper forms to be observed in the 

 legends which should be cut on medals, and 

 in the inscriptions which should be put upon 

 the monuments designed to perpetuate his 

 honor. He fitl}^ called it ' his little academy.* 



