Institut de France

Lonely Planet review

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 (French Academy), 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 other academies are the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the Académie des Sciences, the Académie des Beaux-Arts, and the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques. The domed building housing the institute, across the Seine from the Louvre's eastern end, dates from the mid-17th century. It's a masterpiece of French neoclassical architecture. There are usually tours.

In the same building is the Bibliothèque Mazarine founded in 1643 and the oldest public library in France. You can visit the bust-lined, late-17th-century reading room or consult the library's collection of 500,000 volumes, using a free two-day admission pass obtained by leaving your ID at the office to the left of the entrance.