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Show The French Academy. The French academy is one of the five academies, and the most eminent, constituting the institute of France. It was founded in 1635 by the Cardinal Richelieu, and reorganized in 1816. It Is composed of forty members, ths new member elected by the remaining thirty-nine members for life, after personal per-sonal application and the submission ' of their nomination to the head of the state. It meets twice weekly, at the palace Mazarin, 23 Quia Conti, Paris, and is "the highest authority on everything every-thing appertaining to the niceties of the French language, to grammar, rhetoric and poetry, and the publication publica-tion of the French classics." The chief officer is the secretary, who has a life tenure of his position. A chair in the academy is the highest ambition of most literary Frenchmen. |