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350
YEARS
OF
SCIENCE
9
Minutes of the very first session of the "Académie des sciences" (extract)
After such a good start, a few words to mention the resilience of the "Académie des Sciences": great
academies are bound by the duty to stay on course, “reason against authority”. Over a period of 350
years, the Academy could have faltered, gone astray, forgotten its raison d’être, become a mere coterie
of members enjoying its comfort. Such was not the case. It went through difficult times. Annoyed, indeed,
by the adjective “royal”, the Convention decided to suppress all the academies on 8 August 1793. As they
were involved in the "Comité d’instruction publique", Talleyrand in 1791 and Condorcet in 1792 proposed
the creation of an institute grouping different academies and aiming at the advancement of science and
arts. Unfortunately, this period of the French Revolution was not conducive to such a creation. The Terror
was its height: “
The Republic does not need any scientists
”, so was it claimed to have been said in May
1794. Even if these words were not uttered, no doubt some revolutionists thought them very loud. A song
was even written on this theme. Even today, many people question the value of scientific progress. We do
not forget that the evolution of science is like a medal: there is always a flipside. Is this any reason to reject
scientific creation? We do not have fond memories of the countries that, at some point in their history, tried
to get rid of science and scientists. Very quickly, these societies found themselves on the path to social
and cultural regression. Trying science is always preferable to maintaining ignorance.
The young Republic came back fast enough on this decision, taken in 1793, and acknowledged the
work of scientists who were committed to the service of the Nation. In a law on the organization of public
© C. Manrique - Académie des sciences