Institute of France was established by the Directory in 1795, to take the place of the four academies suppressed by the Convention two years previously. In 1816 Louis XVIII. gave back the old names to its four sections, viz. L'Académie Française, L'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, L'Académie des Sciences, and L'Académie des Beaux Arts. In 1832 was added L'Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. Each academy has its own separate organisation and work, and participates besides in the advantages of the common library, archives, and funds. Election, which is in every case subject to government confirmation, is by ballot, and every member receives an annual salary of at least 1500 francs. Government votes a sum of money annually to the Institute. Members of the French Academy have special duties and privileges, and in some cases special remuneration. They allot every year prizes for eloquence and poetry; a prize “to the poor Frenchman who has done the most virtuous action throughout the year,” and one to the Frenchman “who has written and published the book most conducive to good morals.” Membership in the Académie Française is strictly limited to 40 Frenchmen. The others have, besides, from 40 to 70 members each, also Associate, foreign and corresponding, members. The Institute centralises the pursuit of all branches of knowledge and art, and has been the model of similar national institutes in Madrid, Lisbon, Stockholm, and St. Petersburg.
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Inspired Idiot * Institutes of the Christian Religion