Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres

The Academy represents a very long tradition of scholarship whose international influence has inspired invaluable support. It plays an essential role in the advancement of historical, archaeological, and philological scholarship. According to its charter, the Academy “is primarily concerned with the study of the monuments, the documents, the languages, and the cultures of the civilizations of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the classical period, as well as those of non-European civilizations.” The active involvement of the Academy as well as that of its individual members in the progress of the humanities through the study of everything that is related to human activity and creativity, places it in a privileged position within the current academic community. In 1691 Pontchartrain, up to then in the position of secrétaire d’État à la Maison du roi, succeeded Louvois. Under the influence of his nephew, the abbé Bignon (an Oratorian preacher, librarian to the king, powerful organizer, and veritable éminence grise), the minister decided to promote the Académie royale des Inscriptions by according it a legal framework based upon the structure of the regulations set up for the Académie des Sciences two years earlier. Thus, by the order of July 16, 1701, the Académie royale des Inscriptions was elevated to the status of a state institution, a fact that ensured its continuity. Its existence would be further confirmed (along with that of the Académie des Sciences) by a manifest letter signed by Louis XIV at Marly in February of 1713 and registered with the Parliament of Paris on May 3, 1713. The Académie created tokens of attendance, medals representing on the reverse side a muse holding a laurel crown and surrounded by Horace’s famous quote, vetat mori, a reference to the “immortality” that the Académie offers to the reputation of its members. In fact, this was the very first mention of this “immortality” of name that is still a privilege of the members of the Institut de France who in French are known as the “immortals.” To allow for the Académie to broaden the field of its studies, the number of members was increased to forty: ten honoraires, ten pensionnaires, ten associés, and ten élèves. To these were added six non French associés in 1715. In order for the members to share information, the Académie held meetings in the ground floor of the Louvre beyond the pavillion de l’horloge. The Académie created tokens of attendance, medals representing on the reverse side a muse holding a laurel crown and surrounded by Horace’s famous quote, vetat mori, a reference to the “immortality” that the Académie offers to the reputation of its members. In fact, this was the very first mention of this “immortality” of name that is still a privilege of the members of the Institut de France who in French are known as the “immortals.” To allow for the Académie to broaden the field of its studies, the number of members was increased to forty: ten honoraires, ten pensionnaires, ten associés, and ten élèves. To these were added six non French associés in 1715. In order for the members to share information, the Académie held meetings in the ground floor of the Louvre beyond the pavillion de l’horloge. In 1716, the Académie took the final title of Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and a decision was made to publish the texts or abstracts of presentations that took place during the meetings. This was the beginning of the famous Mémoire de l’Académie whose first volume appeared in 1717. This publication contains scholarly historical and archaeological essays, along with early studies of linguistics, prolegomena of epigraphy or numismatics, and anything relating to the humanities (and in particular Middle Eastern studies). Furthermore, starting in 1786, the Académie was responsible for the collection of the Notices et extraits des manuscrits de la Bibliothèque du roy which included important studies on the writings by Greek, Latin, medieval, and even