The New Student's Reference Work/Academy, The French

Academy, The French, founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, was the great authority in France in all matters of scholarship until it was disbanded during the French Revolution in 1793. Its members were forty of the first scholars of the country, who met three times a week. Its greatest work was the publication of its dictionary of the French language after fifty years of labor. The Academy was reconstructed in 1795, and in its original form it was restored by Louis XVIII in 1816.