The Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Rouen is a learned society created by letters patent of Louis XV

Louis XV of France

Louis XV was a Bourbon monarch who ruled as King of France and of Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather at the age of five, his first cousin Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, served as Regent of the kingdom until Louis's majority in 1723...

 on 17 June 1744.

The Academy of Rouen got its early start with a few friends with a common appreciation for botany who were in the habit of gathering in a small garden of the Bouvreuil suburb of Rouen, under the auspices of Fontenelle

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

Bernard Le Bovier de Fontenelle , also called Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle, was a French author.Fontenelle was born in Rouen, France and died in Paris just one month before his 100th birthday. His mother was the sister of great French dramatists Pierre and Thomas Corneille...

 and Le Cornier de Cideville

Pierre-Robert Le Cornier de Cideville

Pierre Robert Le Cornier de Cideville , was a French magistrate and scholar, co-founder of the Academy of Rouen....

. The formal inception of the Academy of Rouen arose out of the officializing of those informal meetings into a learned society. The articles of the newly formed Academy were renewed and confirmed in Parliament on 10 February 1757. The first director was Tiphaigne La Roche, and its first benefactor was the abbé Legendre

Louis Lengendre (historian)

Louis Legendre , was a French historian.Born at Rouen to poor parents, Legendre owed the benefit of an education to François de Harlay de Champvallon, the archbishop of his native city, whom he followed to Paris, where he received a canonicat at Notre Dame...

.

As with all French academies, abolished by the Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

, the Académie de Rouen underwent a hiatus in 1793, until the prefect of Seine-Inférieure department, Count Beugnot

Jacques Claude Beugnot

Jacques Claude, comte de Beugnot was a French politician before, during, and after the French Revolution. His son Auguste Arthur Beugnot was an historian and scholar.-Revolution:...

 and the mayor of Rouen, Pierre Nicolas de Fontenay, rechartered it in 1803. The Academy recovered its archives and records on 29 June 1803, but not its library or its garden. On 1st June 1804, new letters patent approved its new charter, which was later confirmed on 10 June 1828.

A decree dated 12 April 1852 has granted the Académie des sciences, belles-lettres et arts de Rouen public utility status.

In the absence of a university

University of Rouen

The University of Rouen is a French university, in the Academy of Rouen.-See also:* List of public universities in France by academy...

, the Académie has played, until 1965, a key role in the development of the movement of ideas in Rouen.

Its headquarters are now located at the Hôtel des sociétés savantes de Rouen.

Former Members

Daniel-François-Esprit Auber - François Adrien Boieldieu - Louis-Henri Brévière

Louis-Henri Brévière

Louis-Henri Brévière, born at Forges-les-Eaux in 1797, was a French wood-engraver, to whom is due the honour of having revived the art of wood-engraving, which had been neglected in France since the 17th century...

 - Jean-Antoine Chaptal

Jean-Antoine Chaptal

Jean-Antoine Claude, comte Chaptal de Chanteloup was a French chemist and statesman. He established chemical works for the manufacture of the mineral acids, soda and other substances...

 - Jean Siméon Chardin - Cochin

Charles-Nicolas Cochin

Charles-Nicolas Cochin was a French engraver, designer, writer, and art critic. To distinguish him from his father of the same name, he is variously called Charles-Nicolas Cochin le Jeune , Charles-Nicolas Cochin le fils , or Charles-Nicolas Cochin II.-Early life:Cochin was born in Paris, the son of...

 - Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon

Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon

Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon was a French poet and tragedian.-Life and works:He was born in Dijon, where his father, Melchior Jolyot, was notary-royal. Having been educated at the Jesuit school in the town, and afterwards at the Collège Mazarin. He became an advocate, and was placed in the office...

 - Georges Cuvier

Georges Cuvier

Georges Chrétien Léopold Dagobert Cuvier or Jean Léopold Nicolas Frédéric Cuvier , known as Georges Cuvier, was a French naturalist and zoologist...

 - Jean Delacour

Jean Théodore Delacour

Jean Théodore Delacour was an American ornithologist of French origin. He was renowned for not only discovering but also rearing some of the rarest birds in the world...

 - Jacques Delille

Jacques Delille

Jacques Delille was a French poet and translator. He was born at Aigueperse in Auvergne.-Life:He was an illegitimate child, and was descended by his mother from the chancellor De l'Hôpital. He was educated at the College of Lisieux in Paris and became an elementary teacher...

 - Joseph-Nicolas Delisle

Joseph-Nicolas Delisle

Joseph-Nicolas Delisle was a French astronomer.-Life:He was one of the 11 sons of Claude Delisle . Like many of his brothers, among them Guillaume Delisle, he initially followed classical studies. Soon however, he moved to astronomy under the supervision of Joseph Lieutaud and Jacques Cassini...

 - Léopold Delisle - Jean-Baptiste Descamps

Jean-Baptiste Descamps

Jean-Baptiste Descamps was a French writer and painter of village scenes.Descamps was born in Dunkirk, but lived principally at Paris, till an accidental circumstance fixed him at Rouen, in 1740...

 - Dufriche Desgenettes

René-Nicolas Dufriche Desgenettes

René-Nicolas Dufriche, baron Desgenettes was a French military doctor. He was chief doctor to the French army in Egypt and at Waterloo.-Early life:...

 - Pinot Duclos

Charles Pinot Duclos

Charles Pinot Duclos was a French author.-Life:He was born at Dinan, in Brittany. At an early age, he was sent to study at Paris...

 - Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil

Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil

Jean-Jacques Duval d'Eprémesnil , French magistrate and politician, was born in India at Pondicherry, his father being a colleague of Dupleix....

 - Pierre Flourens - Bernard Le Bouyer de Fontenelle - Édouard Frère

Édouard Frère

Édouard Frère was a French bookseller, archivist, biographer, and historian specialized in the Normandy area.-Life:...

 - Ulric Guttinguer

Ulric Guttinguer

Ulric Guttinguer was a French novelist.-Works:*Goffin, ou les Mineurs sauvés *Nadir, lettres orientales *Le Bal, poème moderne, suivi de poésies...

 - Gabriel Hanotaux

Gabriel Hanotaux

Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux, known as Gabriel Hanotaux was a French statesman and historian.-Biography:...

 - La Harpe

Jean-François de La Harpe

Jean-François de La Harpe was a French playwright, writer and critic.-Life:La Harpe was born in Paris of poor parents. His father, who signed himself Delharpe, was a descendant of a noble family originally of Vaud...

 - Jean-Pierre Houël - Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

 - Bernard Lefebvre

Bernard Lefebvre

Bernard Lefebvre, known as Ellebé, is a French photographer . He was a member of the Rouen Academy, and president of the Rouen Photo-club from 1937-1941 and 1951-1977.-Works:...

 - Pierre Lemonnier

Pierre Lemonnier

Pierre Lemonnier was a French astronomer, a Professor of Physics and Philosophy at the Collège d'Harcourt , and a member of the French Academy of Sciences....

 - Auguste Le Prévost

Auguste Le Prévost

Auguste Le Prévost was a French geologist, philologist, archaeologist and historian....

 - Jean-Jacques Lequeu

Jean-Jacques Lequeu

Jean-Jacques Lequeu was a French draughtsman and architect.Born in Rouen, he won a scholarship to go to Paris, but following the French revolution his architectural career never took off....

 - Emmanuel Liais

Emmanuel Liais

Emmanuel Liais was a French astronomer, botanist and explorer who spent many years in Brazil.He was born in Cherbourg, the son of a wealthy family in the shipbuilding industry....

 - Dortous de Mairan - Marmontel

Jean-François Marmontel

Jean-François Marmontel was a French historian and writer, a member of the Encyclopediste movement.-Biography:He was born of poor parents at Bort, Limousin...

 - Jean-Michel Moreau - Necker

Jacques Necker

Jacques Necker was a French statesman of Swiss birth and finance minister of Louis XVI, a post he held in the lead-up to the French Revolution in 1789.-Early life:...

 - Jean Antoine Nollet - Jean-Frédéric Oberlin - Parmentier - Théophile-Jules Pelouze

Théophile-Jules Pelouze

Théophile-Jules Pelouze was a French chemist. He was born at Valognes, and died in Paris....

 - Pigalle

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle

Jean-Baptiste Pigalle was a French sculptor.He was born in Paris, the seventh child of a carpenter. Although he failed to obtain the Grand Prix, after a severe struggle he entered the Académie Royale and became one of the most popular sculptors of his day.His earlier work, such as Child with Cage ...

 - Jean II Restout

Jean II Restout

Jean II Restout was a French painter, whose late baroque classicism rendered his altarpieces, such as the Death of Saint Scholastica an "isolated achievement" that ran counter to his rococo contemporaries.-Biography:...

 - Jean Restout - Jean-Bernard Restout

Jean-Bernard Restout

Jean-Bernard Restout was a French painter.-Life:A son of Jean II Restout and like him a member of the Académie de Rouen, he won the Prix de Rome in 1758 and was aggregated to the Académie royale on his return from Italy in 1765, then received into it in 1769. However, he refused to conform to its...

 - Tiphaigne La Roche - Jean-Marie Roland - Pilâtre de Rozier - Antoine Léonard Thomas

Antoine Léonard Thomas

Antoine Léonard Thomas was a French poet and literary critic, best known in his time for his great eloquence....

 - Louis-Nicolas Vauquelin - Volta

Alessandro Volta

Count Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Gerolamo Umberto Volta was a Lombard physicist known especially for the invention of the battery in 1800.-Early life and works:...