Word: acad
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Died. Maurice-Edmond Sailland, 83, bald, rotund (220 Ibs.) Gallic gourmet better known by his self-styled title Prince Curnonsky, founder (1928) of France's famed Académie des Gastronomes and head of 27 gastronomical societies, prolific culinary writer (France Gastronomique, in 28 volumes); after accidentally falling from a window of his fourth-floor apartment; in Paris...
Last week the 34 living members of the ancient Académie took a bold step in amending its reputation for crusty conservatism by receiving into their august midst a literary figure as contentious as he is unpredictable. The new member: Jean Cocteau, poet, painter, novelist, dancer, movie producer (Blood of a Poet), playwright, poseur and talker. Now 66 and still savoring his reputation as France's esthetic enfant terrible, Cocteau in times past has taken a gamin's delight in cocking a snook at the stuffy academicians. But things change, he explained, and "one wants...
Once past the barrier, the life of an Immortal is less taxing. It consists largely in collecting an annual stipend of 60,000 francs ($171) and showing up every Thursday in the Académie chamber beneath the great dome of the Institut de France, there to pursue in quiet deliberation tasks ordained by Richelieu 320 years ago. Chief of these tasks is that of "keeping the French language elegant" by constant revision of an official dictionary. It is slow work. The Immortals, though their average age is 73, are in no hurry. The last revised edition of their dictionary...
...only surprises Cocteau prepared for his entry into the academy, however, were his costume, an especially fancy Académie uniform tailored (by Lanvin) of midnight blue instead of the traditional green with gold braid, and his sword (by Cartier) with a hilt modeled to represent a profile of Oedipus. In his initiation speech, Cocteau turned the flow of his conversation on the Immortals with a respect tempered only gently by the old glint of satiric impertinence. "The time is coming when one will no longer be able to read or write, when a few mandarins will whimper secrets...
Somberly dubbed an Immortal, Cocteau promised: "Entrance to the Académie is the last scandal I will create...