No institution of its kind holds so eminent a place in the esteem of a
great country as the _Académie Française_. The elections are always a
matter of interest, largely shared by the cultivated
_Revue-des-Deux-Mondes_-reading world of both hemispheres; and the last
election was one which excited fully as much attention as most of its
predecessors. M. John Lemoinne, who at length summoned up courage to
present himself as a candidate, was born in London in Waterloo year,
1815, and has for a long period, probably thirty years, been, through
the _Journal des Débats_, in some sort a European power. His selection
to fill the seat of M. Jules Janin is in every way appropriate. Indeed,
it seems strange that he should have been contented to wait until he was
sixty-one to come forward for that distinction.

The foundation of the Academy is directly traceable to the meetings of
men of science at the house of M. Courart--who, early in the seventeenth
century, was for forty years its first secretary--but it unquestionably
owes to Richelieu a habitation and a name. It was formed with the
special object of preserving accuracy in the French language, to which
Frenchmen have been wont to pay an almost exclusive attention, but by
the election of M. Lemoinne the Academy will have at least one member
who is no less acquainted with another tongue.

Every one will remember old Miss Crawley's rage when she found that
Becky was trading on her connection with the democratic-aristocratic
spinster to make her way into the Faubourg St. Germain. Too impatient to
write in French, the old lady posted off a furious disavowal of the
little adventuress in vigorous vernacular, but, adds the author, as
Madame la Duchesse had only passed twenty years in England, she didn't
understand one word. It may be hoped that the new Academician will, in
conjunction with the new minister of public instruction, Mr. Waddington,