THE LIBERTY
COLLEGE STUDENT
VOL.
1. JUNE,
1905. NO. 4.
THE FRENCH
ACADEMY.
Some historians say that the
French Academy owes its origin largely to
the influence of Hotel de Rambouillet.
Roederer is positive in his statement. He
says: "From the conversation of Hotel de
Rambouillet, from the passion which was
there awakened for thinking justly and
speaking with precision, was born the
Academie francaise." Livet says that the
idea of an academy was "as a germ in the
air" bound sooner or later to come into
existence. He does not admit that Hotel de
Rambouillet was its birthplace, but grants
that the Academy was nursed and brought up
there. However, the first meeting place of
the literary circle was the ill-furnished
home of the poet
Malherbe. He introduced the
true academic spirit by making poetry
subject to reason and some historians claim
that the meetings of the Academy at Hotel de
Rambouillet were merely a continuation of
the club which met with Malherbe.
In spite of the glitter, pomp
and magnificence of Hotel de Rambouillet it
is evident that some of the literary men
were not happy there. None
of them were rich, and when one is poor it
is hard to be at rest in the presence of
wealth. The fashionable visitors at the
Hotel laughed at the old-fashioned garments
of some of the members. They often made fun
of Chapelain, who was charged with wearing
clothes that were the style when Henry IV.
was king. But it is not
probable that Chapelain cared, for he was
protected by a vanity than which there is no
greater-the vanity of an erudite.
From 1629 there is a well
ordered history of the progress of the
Academy when it left the Hotel and began to
hold its meetings at the home of Valentin
Conrart. Conrart's greatest
gift was making and keeping
friends. He was neither
rich nor poor, but fully shared all he had
with those around
him. The
members must have enjoyed freedom in his
humble home. The meetings
were held just once a week in the
afternoons, for the streets of Paris were
dangerous at night and no one dared venture
out unless protected by a body guard of
servants armed with swords and knives.
When the society first began
its meetings at Conrart's there were only
nine members: Conrart, Chapelain, Godeau,
Gombauld, Giry, Habert, Abbe de Cerisy,
Serizay and
Malleville. Most of them
were young; Cerisy was fifteen, Habert and
Godeau twenty-four, and Conrart,
twenty-six. Only two out of
the nine were professed authors, but all had
literary aspirations. The
members were united not only by youth. They
came from the same social grade and all were
passionately devoted to the French language
and zealous to improve
it. Their conversation was
that of cultivated men, but not of
pedants. While the meetings
were held at Conrart's three new members
were added-Faret, Desmarests de SaintSorlin
and Bois-Robert, the factotum of Richelieu,
the Cardinal.
To Bois Robert belongs the
honor of bringing the young Academy out of
its quiet corner into the glare of
publicity, from which it was never to
escape. Bois-Robert acted
the part of a paid spy to
Richelieu. His duty was to
keep the Cardinal informed of what was going
on in the Academy. The influence of
Bois-Robert on the Academy was due to the
fact that he was the tool of Richelieu,
whose shrewdness and insight into the nature
of men taught him when to tighten his hold
on the members and when to allow them the
freedom of their own
inclinations. Richelieu
offered his protection to the academy and
promised to establish it by letters
patent. Bois-Robert carried
the message to the little circle which he
had betrayed. They were not
pleased, for to take them out of their Eden
was to rob them of what had been the great
charm of that Eden-its freedom from
responsibility. Not without hot debate was
this question settled. Some of the members
were for refusal outright, as they were
meetings at the home of Valentin
Conrart. Conrart's greatest
gift was making and keeping
friends. He was neither
rich nor poor, but fully shared all he had
with those around
him. The
members must have enjoyed freedom in his
humble home. The meetings
were held just once a week in the
afternoons, for the streets of Paris were
dangerous at night and no one dared venture
out unless protected by a body guard of
servants armed with swords and knives.
When the society first began
its meetings at Conrart's there were only
nine members: Conrart, Chapelain, Godeau,
Gombauld, Giry, Habert, Abbe de Cerisy,
Serizay and
Malleville. Most of them
were young; Cerisy was fifteen, Habert and
Godeau twenty-four, and Conrart,
twenty-six. Only two out of
the nine were professed authors, but all had
literary aspirations. The
members were united not only by youth. They
came from the same social grade and all were
passionately devoted to the French language
and zealous to improve
it. Their conversation was
that of cultivated men, but not of
pedants. While the meetings
were held at Conrart's three new members
were added-Faret, Desmarests de SaintSorlin
and Bois-Robert, the factotum of Richelieu,
the Cardinal.
To Bois Robert belongs the
honor of bringing the young Academy out of
its quiet corner into the glare of
publicity, from which it was never to
escape. Bois-Robert acted
the part of a paid spy to
Richelieu. His duty was to
keep the Cardinal informed of what was going
on in the Academy. The influence of
Bois-Robert on the Academy was due to the
fact that he was the tool of Richelieu,
whose shrewdness and insight into the nature
of men taught him when to tighten his hold
on the members and when to allow them the
freedom of their own
inclinations. Richelieu
offered his protection to the academy and
promised to establish it by letters
patent. Bois-Robert carried
the message to the little circle which he
had betrayed. They were not
pleased, for to take them out of their Eden
was to rob them of what had been the great
charm of that Eden-its freedom from
responsibility. Not without hot debate was
this question settled. Some of the members
were for refusal outright, as they were
hostile to Richelieu. There
were some that had rather the Academy should
be given over than guarded by the shrewd eye
of Richelieu. However, one
of the members, Chapelain, brought the
matter to an end by declaring that the
Cardinal's proposition was more of a command
than a suggestion, as under the laws of the
realm no meetings were allowed to be held
without his consent. Richelieu was pleased
with the acceptance of his proposition by
the young Academy and requested them to hold
their meetings as heretofore, to increase
their numbers and decide by what forms of
law the organization was to be
governed. Richelieu's
motives were mixed. He was sincere in his
interest for literature, but still he was
working to gain fame for
himself. And he succeeded
because he knew how to manage the Academy to
the glory of himself and of France.
The letters patent of Louis
XIII. restricted the number of members to
forty and provided that "our very dear and
much beloved cousin, the Cardinal Duc de
Richelieu should be known as the protector
of the Academy." This honor
remained his until the time of his death,
when it was given to Chancellor
Seguier. Seguier's duty as
protector came to an end in
1672. Louis XIV. then
succeeded him. After this
time the head of the State was the protector
of the Academy. About the time that the
letters patent were granted, Conrart, at
whose home the Academy met, announced that
he was to be married. The
homeless Academy then began to meet at the
home of Desmarests, and the Golden Age was
over.
Three officers were chosen, a
Director, a Chancellor and a
Secretary. They debated for
some time on the question of a
name. Some proposed
"Academie des beaux esprits," others
"Academie de l'Eloquence," some thought that
"Academie Eminente" would be a fitting
title, the adjective referring to the
Cardinal. At last they
decided on "Academie francaise," by which
they are still known,
When the Academy was a
private, club the members were under no
obligations to those out of their little
circle. but when it became an institution
they felt that they were bound to do what
was best for the French nation. Their one
central purpose was to purify the French
language. The unifying bond
in their characters was their love for the
French language and a desire to bring it to
the highest
perfection. They wished to
cleanse it of all
impurities. It had been
corrupted by the common people, by the
crowded courts of justice, and by the
ignorant courtiers. So
eager were the Academicians to attain
perfection in their language that they
formulated a document containing rules,
which, if regarded, would purify the
language. Thirty copies of
this document were distributed among the
members for close
criticism. Faret put the
document into its final form and then
presented it to the Cardinal, who made any
criticisms that he cared to. It was
considered a crime to contradict his
Eminence, so the Academy had to accept all
criticisms of the Cardinal.
Jean Chapelain was the true
type of the seventeenth century Academician.
He was devoted to the French language and
did all he could to make the society a power
in the land. He deserved to
be called the "soul of the
Academy." It was Chapelain
who advised the compilation of a Dictionary,
an exact Grammar, and a Rhetoric as means
for giving purity to the language. Chapelain
presented the plan of the Dictionary a
second time. There were to be two divisions
of the book. The first
would have in alphabetical order a
collection of the simple words, showing the
parts of
speech. Chapelain's method
of spelling words was to do away with all
superfluities when it could be done without
serious consequence. The second part of the
Dictionary was to contain all words, simple
or not simple.
Realizing the difficulty
connected with this great work, the Academy
hesitated to proceed further unaided, and
asked Richelieu to appoint a director or to
give them men fitted to carry out the work,
to aid them. The Cardinal
paid no attention to this plea. Matters were
at a standstill. For ten months the
Dictionary was not mentioned-all interest
seemed dead. Richelieu said
that they were doing nothing, and if they
didn't reform he would abandon
them. The Academicians told
the Cardinal again that they needed some one
to direct the compilation of the Dictionary.
This one
proved to be
Vangelas. Vangelas' love
for the French language was almost a
passion; he would become lyric over syntax
and intoxicated by
etymologies. Surely he was
the one to make a
dictionary. The Cardinal
re-established Vangelas in his pension,
which he had lost in a certain alliance.
Vangelas went to thank the Cardinal for the
favor. Pellison describes
the incident: "The Cardinal, seeing the
scholar enter the room, advanced with benign
and smiling majesty and
said: `Ah, Monsieur, you
will at least not forget the word pension in
the Dictionary?' To which
Vangelas with a profound bow responded, `No,
Monseigneur, and still less the word
remembrance."'
In 1672 the Dictionary was
finished to a certain degree, but not for
good. The Academy spent twenty more years in
correcting the work. The final edition came
out in 1694. As the Academicians wished to
protect their language, the Dictionary was
conservative. "It was like a coupe, very
elegant, but with room for two, while some
of our American dictionaries are like an
omnibus painted yellow and filled with
everybody and anybody."
The early period of the
Academy was an age when fortunes were made
in a day, when men could rise from the
lowest beginning to the highest official
position. During the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries the
history of the Academy is the history of
France. Its future is somewhat
problematical, though, because of the
conservatism of the French people, it will
stand. It lived through the
French Revolution and no severer test could
be put upon it. The French
Academy is an institution to which the word
unique can be applied. It
is a society whose history is worthy of
being understood and whose memoirs are
worthy of being carefully
preserved.
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