Institut de France and Pont des Arts
   

The institut was built by Le Vau, Louis XIV’s architect, to house a learned body called the Collège des Quatre Nations. Work started in 1663 and went on for nine years. At this point it was discovered that the place was already inhabited. Squatters had moved in; not tramps, mind, high-class squatters. There was a Marquis, a priest who had just got married (!), another priest with his father and four servants; a writer, living by himself in five rooms; a tailor, a Doctor, a Chemist, a carpet-maker, some painters and of all things, a Duke who was a relative of the late Cardinal Mazarin, money from whose will had paid for the building. It took considerable time and difficulty to get them all out.

Even when the squatters were evicted, the Palace included, on the ground floor, 27 shops – including one where a quack by the name of Barbereau, assisted by the beauty of his wife and daughter, made a good living selling ‘medicinal water’, guaranteed to cure almost anything, which he took straight from the river.

The Palais de l’Institut now houses five Academies, grouping the most distinguished scholars and writers of France; Historians and archaeologists; Philosophers, politicians and lawyers; Scientists; Painters, sculptors and musicians; and, most famous of all, the  Académie Française, founded in 1635 at the instigation of that Madame de Rambouillet whose house we just passed. Its members are known as the Immortals and wear on special occasions a uniform so encrusted with gold braid you can only just tell it’s blue.

The election of a new member is a great event – there are only 40 at a time, elected for life – but it’s surprising how few of them are remembered by posterity, and how many truly great writers escape election. They are in charge – literally – of the French Language, and meet once a week to work on the official Dictionary. If they say a word ain’t French, it ain’t French. Which is why modern French is actually two languages; one written – and subject to the scrutiny of the Académie – and one spoken.

  

  

The PONT DES ARTS  joins the Institut to the Louvre. It’s a footbridge, but quite a wide one, with a splendid view up and down river to the Île de la Cité one way and the Louvre and Gare d’Orsay the other. The seats are new and well-designed. A good place to be.

  

 

  

  

  

  

  

We were standing on the Pont des Arts.  All the beauty of springtime Paris was around us.  Downstream, the sun caught the rooftops of the Musée d’Orsay and the Louvre, and glinted on the water under that elegant succession of bridges.  To our right the stately dome of the Institut de France lorded it over the quiet quaysides.  Upstream, we gazed at the Île de la Cité, the spires of Notre-Dame and the Sainte-Chapelle thrusting above the rooftops, the bronze statue of Henri IV riding majestically towards us between the sweet twin curves of the Pont Neuf.  On the narrow prow of the island, two lovers were entwined beneath the willow tree which was in the very act of putting forth its new leaves, the palest yellow-green.

Chasing up and down the wooden planking of the bridge, or sitting in groups on the shiny modern benches, a tangle of English schoolchildren gossiped, fought, argued, shrieked, jumped, played, sulked or laughed, each according to its disposition. Not one, as far as I could see, was looking at the view.  Why, I asked myself for the hundredth time in twenty years, did I bother to bring them?

At this point, I felt a tug at my sleeve.  I looked down.  Ben, one of our smallest and most timid boys, was at my side.

‘Sir?’

‘Yes, Ben?’

‘Good ’ere, innit?’

The complete panorama: