In the King’s library in Paris, on 22 December 1666, a small group of scholars met under Louis XIV’s patronage. Jean-Baptiste Colbert, the minister who drove the plan, wanted a body that would encourage and protect French scientific research, and the rooms near the present-day Bibliothèque Nationale soon rang with twice-weekly work rather than ceremony.

For the first thirty years there were no fixed statutes, only argument, election, and experiment. The Academy was an organ of government, not a private club, so every vacancy mattered. A mathematician could only replace a mathematician, and when no fitting specialist could be found, a chair simply stayed empty.