The French Institute, created in 1795, brought together five of France’s academies of arts and sciences. The most famous of these is the Académie Française, founded in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu. Its 40 members, known as the Immortels (Immortals), have the Herculean (some say impossible) task of safeguarding the purity of the French language.
The domed building housing the institute, across the Seine from the Louvre’s eastern end, is a masterpiece of French neoclassical architecture.