fme_581019 - THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE Médaille, Institut Académique de Paris

THE INSTITUT DE FRANCE

The academies of the Ancien Régime were dissolved, like the other royal institutions, in 1793. But the need for an assembly of writers, scholars and artists remaining, the Convention, in its penultimate session, October 25, 1795, created the Institut de France, bringing together the existing academies and a new "class " in charge of "moral and political sciences". There were Destutt de Tracy, Cabanis, Garat, Volney… For political reasons, this class was abolished in 1803 by Bonaparte, then First Consul, and its members distributed among the other classes of the Institute.. It was on the initiative of François Guizot, then Minister of Public Instruction, that King Louis-Philippe restored the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences (royal order of October 26, 1832). It was the first French institution to cover the field of humanities. From then on, it counted among its members the most illustrious men of their time: Guizot, Tocqueville, Michelet, Victor Cousin, Pierre Janet, Fustel de Coulanges, Bergson, René Cassin, René Coty, Raymond Aron, Jacques Rueff, Lucien Febvre , Cardinal Henri de Lubac, Albert Schweitzer, Pierre Messmer, etc.. .