aginations as they are in conformity with the common
sense of those who have superior judgment. Truth has this advantage,
that it forces those who have eyes and mind sufficiently clear to discern
what it is to represent it without disguise." Neither Balzac and his
friends, nor the protection of Cardinal Richelieu, sufficed as yet to
give lustre to the Academy; great minds and great writers alone could
make the glory of their society. The principle of the association of men
of letters was, however, established: men of the world, friendly to
literature, were already preparing to mingle with them; the literary,
but lately servitors of the great, had henceforth at their disposal a
privilege envied and sought after by courtiers; their independence grew
by it and their dignity gained by it. The French Academy became an
institution, and took its place amongst the glories of France. It had
this piece of good fortune, that Cardinal Richelieu died without being
able to carry out the project he had conceived. He had intended to open
on the site of the horse-market, near Porte St. Honore and behind the
Palais-Cardinal, "a great Place which he would have called Ducale in
imitation of the Royale, which is at the other end of the city," says
Pellisson; he had placed in the hands of M. de la Mesnardiere, a
memorandum drawn up by himself for the plan of a college "which he was
meditating for all the noble sciences, and in which he designed to employ
all that was most telling for the cause of literature in Europe. He had
an idea of making the members of the Academy directors and as it were
arbiters of this great establishment, and aspired, with a feeling worthy
of the immortality with which he was so much in love, to set up the
French Academy there in the most distinguished position in the world, and
to offer an honorable and pleasant repose to all persons of that class
who had deserved it by their labors." It was a noble and a liberal idea,
worthy of the great mind which had conceived it; but it would have
stifled the fertile germ of independence and liberty which he had
unconsciously buried in the womb of the French Academy. Pensioned and
barracked, the Academicians would have remained men of letters, shut off
from society and the world. The Academy grew up alone, favored indeed,
but never reduced to servitude; it alone has withstood the cruel shocks
which have for so long a time agitated France; in a country where nothing
last