The Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Caen was founded in

Caen Caen (; ; ) is a Communes of France, commune inland from the northwestern coast of France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Calvados (department), Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inha ...

(

Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

) by Jacques Moisant de Brieux in

1652 Events January–March * January 8 – Michiel de Ruyter marries the widow Anna van Gelder and plans retirement, but months later becomes a vice-commodore in the First Anglo-Dutch War. * February 4 – At Edinburgh, the parl ...

. The Académie de Caen was the first academy of literature to be founded in France, after the

French Academy French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

. It also was the first French Academy of Physics ( Académie de Physique) in France (

1662 Events January–March * January 4 – Dziaddin Mukarram Shah becomes the new Sultan of Kedah, an independent kingdom on the Malay Peninsula, upon the death of his father, Sultan Muhyiddin Mansur. * January 10 – At the ...

), four years before the founding of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

Samuel Bochart Samuel Bochart (30 May 1599 – 16 May 1667) was a French Protestant biblical scholar, a student of Thomas Erpenius and the teacher of Pierre Daniel Huet. His two-volume (Caen 1646) exerted a profound influence on seventeenth-century Biblical e ...

, Pierre-Daniel Huet, Jean Regnault de Segrais and

Antoine Garaby de La Luzerne Antoine de Garaby, sieur de Pierrepont, de La Luzerne et d'Étienville (28 October 1617 – 4 July 1679) was a French moralist. Garaby de La Luzerne was born in the family manor of La Besnardière at Montchaton near Coutances. He was the son of Be ...

were some of its first members.

History

The well-read public of

was in the habit of conversing about public affairs at the Place St. Pierre on Mondays, on the day when the mail would arrive. Being frequently disturbed by the inclement weather, Moisant de Brieux endeavored to remedy their problem by opening to them his hotel d'Escoville. In its beginnings, the assembly merely read ''

La Gazette (), originally , was the first weekly magazine published in France. It was founded by Théophraste Renaudot and published its first edition on 30 May 1631. It progressively became the mouthpiece of one royalist faction, the Legitimists. Pascal ...

'' and discussed current news. Soon, it was to debate about literary and scientific subjects. Starting from 1652, the Academy of Caen had become a learned society chaired by Moisant de Brieux until his death in 1674. Jean Regnault de Segrais then take over, welcoming in turn the Academy in his home, from 1685 onward until his own death in March 1701. The Academy then underwent a four-year hiatus until 1705, when Jean-Claude Croisilles, Jean Regnault de Segrais' brother-in-law, sheltered it in his house. On that year, the existence of the Academy's legal existence, as "Académie royale des Belles-Lettres", was confirmed by patent letters from the king. Having experienced another interruption, owing to a disagreement with its host, the Academy had to wait for the

Paul d'Albert de Luynes Paul d'Albert (; 5 January 1703 – 21 January 1788) was a French prelate. He was elected the seventh occupant of Académie française seat 29 in 1743. Early life Paul d'Albert was born on 5 January 1703 in the city of Versailles, where his fam ...

Bishop of Bayeux The Diocese of Bayeux and Lisieux (Latin: ''Dioecesis Baiocensis et Lexoviensis''; French: ''Diocèse de Bayeux et Lisieux'') is a Latin Church diocese of the Catholic Church in France. It is coextensive with the Department of Calvados and is a ...

's hospitality. Now free to meet again in the hall of the bishop's palace, the Academy was to experience another interruption. Upon learning it had elected Protestants, the bishop bent over backwards to put his dissatisfaction with the Academy across with a serious affront: after convening a special meeting regarding a critical matter, he failed to show up. It turned out the matter in question was a simple chess game. When the French Revolution did away with all Academies, the Academy of Caen was no exception, and it would not to be restored until 12 December 1800, when General Dugua, then prefect of Calvados, brought it back to life under the name of "Lycée de Caen". It then became "Société académique", and finally "Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres" in 1801. A decree dated 10 August 1853 has granted the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Caen public utility status.

Venues

* 1652-1682: Hôtel d'Escoville * 1685-1701: Regnault Segrais Townhouse * 1701-1714: Jean-Claude de Croisilles Townhouse * 1731-1753: Palace of the bishops of Bayeux * 1753-1792: Hôtel d'Escoville * Prefecture * Pavillon des sociétés savantes * Current headquarters: Hôtel d'Escoville

Members of the Academy of Caen

André-Marie Ampère André-Marie Ampère (, ; ; 20 January 177510 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematician who was one of the founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as ''electrodynamics''. He is also the inventor of ...

Jean-Jacques Boisard Jean-Jacques François Marius Boisard (Caen, 1743 – 1831) was a French fabulist. Biography Boisard was a French fabulist born in 1743 in Caen, a historical town located in Normandy, North-West France, about 150 kilometers from Paris. Educated by ...

- Adolphe Brongniart -

Jacques de Callières Jacques or Jacq are believed to originate from the Middle Ages in the historic northwest Brittany region in France, and have since spread around the world over the centuries. To date, there are over one hundred identified noble families related t ...

- Pierre Chaunu -

François Coppée François Edouard Joachim Coppée (; 26 January 1842 – 23 May 1908) was a French poet and novelist. Biography Coppée was born in Paris to a civil servant. After attending the Lycée Saint-Louis he became a clerk in the ministry of war and wo ...

- J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur - Pierre Daru -

Paul Deschanel Paul Eugène Louis Deschanel (; 13 February 185528 April 1922) was a French politician who served as President of France from 18 February to 21 September 1920. Biography Paul Deschanel, the son of Émile Deschanel (1819–1904), professor at ...

René-Nicolas Dufriche Desgenettes René-Nicolas Dufriche, baron Desgenettes (23 May 1762, Alençon – 3 February 1837, Paris) was a French military doctor. He was chief doctor to the French army in Egypt and at Waterloo. Life Early life Son of a lawyer at the Parliament o ...

Jules Dumont d'Urville Jules Sébastien César Dumont d'Urville (; 23 May 1790 – 8 May 1842) was a French List of explorers, explorer and French Navy, naval officer who explored the south and western Pacific, Australia, New Zealand and Antarctica. As a botanist an ...

Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours ( , ; 14 December 1739 – 7 August 1817) was a French-American writer, economist, publisher and government official. During the French Revolution, he, his two sons and their families migrated to the United ...

Léonce Élie de Beaumont Léonce is a French unisex given name. People with the name Léonce include: *Léonce (actor) (1823–1900), French actor and singer *Léonce Bekemans (born 1950), Belgian economist and scholar *Léonce-Henri Burel (1892–1977), French cinematog ...

Charles-Michel de l'Épée Charles-Michel de l'Épée (; 24 November 1712 – 23 December 1789) was an 18th-century French philanthropic educator who has become known as the "Father of the Deaf". He founded Institut National de Jeunes Sourds de Paris, the first public sch ...

Octave Feuillet Octave Feuillet (11 July 1821 – 29 December 1890) was a French novelist and dramatist. His work stands midway between the romanticists and the realists. He is renowned for his "distinguished and lucid portraiture of life", depictions of fe ...

Camille Flammarion Nicolas Camille Flammarion FRAS (; 26 February 1842 – 3 June 1925) was a French astronomer and author. He was a prolific author of more than fifty titles, including popular science works about astronomy, several notable early science fiction ...

Augustin Fresnel Augustin-Jean Fresnel (10 May 1788 – 14 July 1827) was a French civil engineer and physicist whose research in optics led to the almost unanimous acceptance of the wave theory of light, excluding any remnant of Isaac Newton, Newton's c ...

Antoine Galland Antoine Galland (; 4 April 1646 – 17 February 1715) was a French orientalist and archaeologist, most famous as the first European translator of ''One Thousand and One Nights'', which he called '' Les mille et une nuits''. His version of the ta ...

- Henri Joseph Eugène Gouraud -

Georges Goyau Georges Goyau (31 May 1869 – 25 October 1939) was a French historian and essayist specializing in religious history. Biography Pierre-Louis-Théophile-Georges Goyau was born in Orléans 31 May 1869, and attended the Lycée d'Orléans before mov ...

Émile Guimet Émile Étienne Guimet (2 June 183612 August 1918) was a French industrialist, traveler and connoisseur. An important collector of artefacts related to Oriental religions and Asian arts, Guimet is the founder of the Musée Guimet. Life and ca ...

François Guizot François Pierre Guillaume Guizot (; 4 October 1787 – 12 September 1874) was a French historian, orator and Politician, statesman. Guizot was a dominant figure in French politics between the July Revolution, Revolution of 1830 and the Revoluti ...

- Claude-Adrien Helvétius - François Honorat de Beauvilliers - Pierre-Daniel Huet - Gervais de La Rue -

Bernard Germain de Lacépède Bernard-Germain-Étienne de La Ville-sur-Illon, comte de Lacépède or La Cépède (; 26 December 17566 October 1825) was a French natural history, naturalist and an active freemason. He is known for his contribution to the Comte de Buffon's g ...

Alphonse de Lamartine Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (; 21 October 179028 February 1869) was a French author, poet, and statesman. Initially a moderate royalist, he became one of the leading critics of the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe, aligning more w ...

Pierre-Simon Laplace Pierre-Simon, Marquis de Laplace (; ; 23 March 1749 – 5 March 1827) was a French polymath, a scholar whose work has been instrumental in the fields of physics, astronomy, mathematics, engineering, statistics, and philosophy. He summariz ...

Urbain Le Verrier Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier (; 11 March 1811 – 23 September 1877) was a French astronomer and mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics and is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics. ...

François Magendie __NOTOC__ François Magendie (6 October 1783 – 7 October 1855) was a French physiologist, considered a pioneer of experimental physiology. He is known for describing the foramen of Magendie. There is also a ''Magendie sign'', a downward ...

Étienne-Jules Marey Étienne-Jules Marey (; 5 March 1830, Beaune, Côte-d'Or – 15 May 1904, Paris) was a French scientist, physiologist and chronophotographer. His work was significant in the development of cardiology, physical instrumentation, aviation, cinema ...

Henri Poincaré Jules Henri Poincaré (, ; ; 29 April 185417 July 1912) was a French mathematician, Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist, engineer, and philosophy of science, philosopher of science. He is often described as a polymath, and in mathemati ...

- Jean Regnault de Segrais -

Jean II Restout Jean Restout the Younger (26 March 16921 January 1768) was a French artist, who worked in painting and drawing. Although little remembered today, Restout was well-respected by his contemporaries for his religious compositions. Biography Restout w ...

Léopold Sédar Senghor Léopold Sédar Senghor ( , , ; 9 October 1906 – 20 December 2001) was a Senegalese politician, cultural theorist and poet who served as the first president of Senegal from 1960 to 1980. Ideologically an African socialist, Senghor was one ...

Jules Simon Jules François Simon (; 31 December 1814 – 8 June 1896) was a French statesman and philosopher, and one of the leaders of the Moderate Republicans in the Third French Republic. Biography Simon was born at Lorient. His father was a linen-dr ...

Alexis de Tocqueville Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, comte de Tocqueville (29 July 180516 April 1859), was a French Aristocracy (class), aristocrat, diplomat, political philosopher, and historian. He is best known for his works ''Democracy in America'' (appearing in t ...

- Raymond Triboulet

Notes and references

External links

Official Website of the Academy of Caen
{{DEFAULTSORT:Academie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Caen 1652 establishments in France Learned societies of France Educational institutions established in the 1650s History of Caen