rance two hundred and fifty years ago. We may very
rapidly remind ourselves that the French Academy was constituted in
1634 with thirty-five members, who became the stationary and immortal
Forty in 1639. One of its original functions was the preparation of a
great Dictionary of the French language, under the special care of
the eminent grammarian, Vaugelas, who had through his lifetime
made collections--"various beautiful and curious observations," as
Pellisson calls them--towards a reasoned philological study of French.
The poet Chapelain was appointed a sort of general editor of the
projected Dictionary, which was solemnly started early in 1638. For
the next four years the Academicians were very active, spurred on by
Richelieu, but when, in 1642, the Cardinal died, their zeal relented,
and when, in 1650, Vaugelas's presence ceased to urge them forward, it
flagged altogether. Vaugelas died bankrupt, and his creditors seized
his writing-desks, the drawers of which contained a great part of the
MS. collections for the Dictionary. It was only after a lawsuit that
the Academy recovered those papers, and Mezeray was then set to
continue the editing of the work. Still twice a week the Academy met
to consult about the Dictionary, but so languidly and with so little
fire, that Boisrobert said that not the youngest of the Forty could
hope to live to print the letter G. As a matter of fact, not one of
those who started the Dictionary lived to see it published.

In this slow fashion, with long Rip Van Winkle slumbers and occasional
faint awakenings, the French Academy faltered on with fitful
persistence towards the completion of its famous Dictionary. But, as
I have said, it was a period of great enthusiasm about all such
summaries of knowledge, and Paris was thirsting for grammars,
lexicons, inventories of language and the like. The Academy insisted
that the world must wait for the approach of their vast and lumbering
machine; but meanwhile public curiosity was impatient, and all sorts
of brief and imperfect dictionaries were issued to satisfy it. The
publication of these spurious guides to knowledge infuriated the
Academy, until in 1674 the dog permanently occupied the manger by
inducing the King to issue a decree "forbidding all printers and
publishers to print any new dictionary of the French language, under
any title whatsoever, until the publication of that of the French
Academy, or until twenty years have expired since the