Word: mies
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...French high cultural circles, mere excellence is not considered the whole guarantee of immortality. The distinguished men who at any one time occupy the 40 chairs of the famed Académie Française enjoy a specific patent of immortality that dates back to Cardinal Richelieu. But many of France's greatest writers have been barred from the academy for reasons that had little to do with their greatness. The academy's mythical "41st chair," reserved by legend for those who never made the grade, has been occupied by such greats as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose loose...
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...
...review of the Short Novels of Colette, you speak of the eminent writer as being "now a distinguished member of the French Academy." Since when has that body of so-called immortals, senescent gynophobes, honored Madame Colette? I know that she is the president of the lesser Académie Goncourt, and followed the Comtesse de Noailles as a member of the Belgian Académie Royal de Langue et de Littérature Française. But her membership in the Academic Française is news to me, as indeed it must be to that body itself...