Each class shall afterwards regulate the employment of the funds
which shall have been assigned for its expenses, as well as every
thing that concerns the printing and publication of its memoirs.

XIII. Every year, each class shall distribute prizes, the number and
value of which shall be regulated as follows:

The first class, a prize of 3000 francs.

The second and third classes, each a prize of 1500 francs.

And the fourth class, great prizes of painting, sculpture,
architecture, and musical composition. Those who shall have gained
one of these four great prizes, shall be sent to Rome, and maintained
at the expense of the government.

XIV. The Minister of the Interior is charged with the execution of
the present decree, which shall be inserted in the Bulletin of the
Laws.

[Footnote 1: Referred to in Letter XLV, Vol. II of this work.]



INTRODUCTION.

On ushering into the world a literary production, custom has
established that its parent should give some account of his
offspring. Indeed, this becomes the more necessary at the present
moment, as the short-lived peace, which gave birth to the following