Académie Française

L'Académie française (French pronunciation: [lakademi fʀɑ̃sɛz]), also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution, it was restored in 1803 by Napoleon Bonaparte. It is the oldest of the five académies of the Institut de France.

The Académie consists of forty members, known as immortels (immortals). New members are elected by the members of the Académie itself. Académicians hold office for life, but they may be removed for misconduct. Philippe Pétain, named Marshall of France after the victory of Verdun in World War I, was elected to the Academy in 1931 and, following his governorship of Vichy France in World War II, forced to resign his seat in 1945. The body has the task of acting as an official authority on the language; it is charged with publishing an official dictionary of the language. Its rulings, however, are only advisory; not binding on either the public or the government.

The 6th arrondissement of Paris is one of the 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) of the capital city of France. It includes world famous educational institutions such as the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris and the Académie française, the seat of the French Senate as well as a concentration of some of Paris most famous monuments such as Saint-Germain Abbey and square, St. Sulpice Church and square, the Pont des Arts or the Jardins du Luxembourg.

Situated on the left bank of the River Seine, this central arrondissement which includes the historic districts of Saint-Germain-des-Prés (surrounding the Abbey founded in the 6th century) and Luxembourg (surrounding the Palace and its Gardens) has played a major role throughout Paris history and is well-known for its café culture and the revolutionary intellectualism (see: Existentialism, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir) and literature (see: Paul Eluard, Boris Vian, Albert Camus, Francoise Sagan) it has hosted.

Paris (ⁱ/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] ( listen)) is the capital of and largest city in France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). The city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297 (January 2008), but the Paris metropolitan area has a population of 12,089,098, (January 2008), and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.

La Rive Gauche (French pronunciation: [la ʁiv ɡoʃ], The Left Bank) is the southern bank of the river Seine in Paris. Here the river flows roughly westward, cutting the city in two: looking downstream, the southern bank is to the left, and the northern bank (or Rive Droite) is to the right.

"Rive Gauche" or "Left Bank" generally refers to the Paris of an earlier era; the Paris of artists, writers and philosophers, including Pablo Picasso, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Verlaine, Henri Matisse, Jean-Paul Sartre, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and dozens of other members of the great artistic community at Montparnasse. The phrase implies a sense of bohemianism and creativity. Some of its famous streets are the Boulevard Saint-Germain, the Boulevard Saint-Michel and the Rue de Rennes.

The Latin Quarter is a Left Bank area in the 5th arrondissement, so named because originally Latin was widely spoken by students in the vicinity of the University of Paris.