X-Nico

12 unusual facts about Académie française


Abdelfattah Kilito

Some of the awards Kilito has won are the Great Moroccan Award (1989), the Atlas Award (1996), the French Academy Award (le prix du Rayonnement de la langue française) (1996) and Sultan Al Owais Prize for Criticism and Literature Studies (2006).

Belgian French

He is known around the French community for his 1600 pages reference book on French grammar, le bon usage, which received an award from the Académie française.

Bouquinistes

The term "bouquiniste" appears in the dictionary of the Académie française in 1789.

Cartier Castle

Marguerite Yourcenar, a Belgian-born French novelist and essayist, and the first woman elected to the Académie française, is the daughter of Fernande de Cartier de Marchienne, from the Cartier family related to the Cartier castle.

Hartog Plate

After being shipwrecked in the Falkland Islands the plate and other materials from the Uranie voyage were later transferred to another ship and taken to France, where it was presented to the Académie française in Paris.

Hôtel de Rambouillet

The précieux refinements of the French language would find some codification in the Dictionnaire de l'Académie française eventually published by the Académie française, which found its start in the Hôtel Rambouillet.

Jean-Baptiste Dubos

He gained such distinction as an author that in 1720 he was elected a member of the Académie française, of which, in 1723, he was appointed perpetual secretary in succession to André Dacier.

Jean-Jacques Boisard

As a member of the Royal Academy of Literature (Académie royale des Belles-lettres) of Caen, the first academy established in France after the "Académie française", he started publishing fables in 1764 in the Mercure de France.

Jean-Jacques Renouard de Villayer

In 1659, Renouard de Villayer became a member of the Académie française, succeeding Abel Servien.

Jules Sandeau

Sandeau had been made conservateur of the Mazarin library in 1853, elected to the Académie française in 1858, and appointed librarian of St Cloud in 1859.

Octave Feuillet

He was elected to the Académie française in 1862, and in 1868 he was made librarian of Fontainebleau palace, where he had to reside for a month or two in each year.

Tornio

The most notable expedition (1736–1737) was led by a member of the Académie française, Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis, who came to take meridian arc measurements along the Torne River Valley which would show that the globe is flattened towards the poles.


Adolphe Perraud

Elected to the Académie française in 1882 to replace Henri Auguste Barbier, in 1885 he welcomed Victor Duruy and in 1889 delivered the discourse on the prizes of virtue.

Antoine Beaussant

Antoine Beaussant is thus carrying on the family tradition started by his grandfather Charles-Gustave Beaussant, an entrepreneur and music lover who graduated from HEC in 1923, and upheld by his father Philippe Beaussant, a writer, baroque music expert and member of the Académie française.

Casiquiare canal

Charles Marie de La Condamine, seven months later, was able to give to the Académie française an account of Father Roman's voyage, and thus confirm the existence of this waterway, first reported by Father Acuña in 1639.

Claude Fleury

In 1696 he was elected to fill the place of La Bruyère in the Académie française; and on the completion of the education of the young princes the king bestowed upon him the rich priory of Argenteuil, in the diocese of Paris (1706).

Denis-Luc Frayssinous

The consecration of Frayssinous as bishop of Hermopolis in partibus, his election to the Académie française, and his appointment to the grand-mastership of the university, followed in rapid succession.

Eliette Abécassis

Her next novel, La Répudiée, a finalist for the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française and for the Prix Fémina, was the inspiration for Amos Gitai's film Kadosh.

Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale

Elected deputy for the Oise département, he returned to France, and succeeded to the fauteuil of the comte Montalembert in the Académie française.

House of Castries

René de La Croix de Castries, marquis, called duc de Castries, (1908–1986), historian and member of the Académie française.

Jacques de Serisay

Jacques de Serisay (1594 in Paris – November 1653 in La Rochefoucauld, Charente) was a French poet, intendant of the duc de La Rochefoucauld, and the founding director of the Académie française from 1634 to 11 January 1638 where he was the first occupant of seat three.

Kama Sywor Kamanda

This writer has earned several major prizes and distinctions, including the Paul Verlaine Prize from the Académie française (1987), the Louise Labbé Prize (1990), the Black Africa Grand Prize for Literature (1991), and the Théophile Gautier prize (1993) from the Académie française.

Louis Madelin

Elected to the Académie française in 1927 (replacing Robert de Flers in seat 5), in Lorraine he became president of the Association des Amis du berceau de Jeanne d'Arc on the death of Lyautey - the Association organised mass demonstrations in Domrémy from 1937 to 1939 under the aegis of the Compagnons de Jeanne d'Arc.

Louis Moinet

There he came into regular contact with members of the French Academy which brought together the most illustrious artists of the time.

Louis Racine

But, because of the poem's Jansenist inspiration, Cardinal de Fleury, chief minister of Louis XV, blocked the poet's admission to the Académie Française, and instead Racine was induced to accept the post of inspector-general of taxes at Marseille in Provence.

Max Gallo

On April 26, 2007, the Académie française recorded his candidacy for its Seat 24, formerly held by the late Jean-François Revel.

Modern Greek art

In the early 20th century Demetrios Galanis, a contemporary and friend of Picasso, achieved wide recognition in France and lifelong membership of the Académie française following his acclaim by the critic Andre Malreaux as an artist capable "of stirring emotions as powerful as those of Giotto".

Paris-Sorbonne University

Claude Lecouteux, professor of Medieval German literature, winner of the Strasbourg Prize of the Académie française

The New Academy

France saw the founding of the Académie française (1635) and the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (1663); In England, the formation of the Royal Society (1660), the earliest known Masonic lodges, and the earliest schools for girls were varying expressions of this same trend.

The Romantic Spirit

The series is an Anglo-French-German production presented by R.M. Productions (Film & Television) Ltd. and FR3, devised by Marcel Brion of the Académie Française, with the executive producers being Michèle Arnaud and Theodore Salata.

Théodore Gosselin

Gosselin was made an officer of the Légion d'honneur and in 1932 was elected to the Académie française, but died before being able to sit in the Academy and never made the speech which he had written in homage to his predecessor, René Bazin.

Vladimir Volkoff

With Le montage (winner of the Grand Prix du roman de l'Académie française, 1982) Volkoff illustrated the methods and networks of tricks and traps of Soviet "disinformation" in Europe; the idea of this novel could have come from Alexandre de Marenches, director of the SDECE, who may have provided the factual basis for its plot.