Institut de France: “A most courteous contest”

One of architect Louis Le Vau's masterpieces, the seventeenth-century former Mazarin Palace (Quai de Conti), with its distinctive cupola flanked by two square pavilions designed to harmonize with the Louvre on the other side of the Seine, was given over to the Institute of France in 1805. The most prestigious of French organizations, the Institute devotes itself to perfecting and protecting French arts and sciences. Five academies, the earliest founded in 1635 by Richelieu, comprise the illustrious body of the Institute: Académie française (French Academy), Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres (Academy of Inscriptions and Literature), Académie des sciences (Academy of Sciences), Académie des beaux-arts (Academy of Fine Arts), Académie des sciences morales et politiques (Academy of Moral and Political Sciences). Each of the five academies includes several branches of specialty.

The Academy of Fine Arts—an elite body of forty “immortals,” as they are known, plus a secrétaire perpétuel (perpetual secretary)—is divided into five specific areas: painting (fourteen members), sculpture (eight members), architecture (eight members), engraving (four members), and music (six members). There are also ten free members, ten foreign associates, and fifty correspondents. Luminaries in their respective fields incorporate the representative body of each academy. An academician is elected for life by majority vote of his peers in the academy to which his name has been proposed; a vacancy occurs only upon the death of a member. It is both a great honor and a symbol of considerable distinction to be elected a member of the French Institute.

A vacancy in the music branch of the Academy of Fine Arts occurred in 1909 upon the death of Ernest Reyer. Widor penned a letter of candidature to Henry Roujon (1853–1914), perpetual secretary of the Academy, on February 19, 1909; he briefly detailed his qualifications by citing what he considered to be some of his most important works: