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What is the meaning of the French Institute sword? What does its symbolism teach us?

The sword of the Institute is not a weapon of a specified type, but an honorary symbol, to be freely modeled and ornamented. Offspring of the sword of knights and members of the royal court, it was a feature of the dress of the Officers of the Republic drawn by David. The principle, taken over by Bonaparte for the representatives of the senior branches of the French Civil Service –including museum curators–, and applied to the Institute in 1805, has kept all of its attributes, even when women were admitted to the French Academy. "(…) The Institute sword, and its unrestricted symbolism lead us, by extension, to history and allegory, and evokes other sword-bearers. For the men, the Nine Valiant Knights of Chivalry, Saint-Georges, and the Archangels Michael and Uriel. For the women, besides Joan of Arc, Judith, Saint Agnes, Barbe (sometimes), Euphemia, Justine, the Nine Valiant Ladies, Strength and Justice. Finally, the Institute grants an exemption to men of the Church : Father Carré did not wear one, though it might well suggest one of the meanings of the sword of the Eternal particularly pertinent to the French Academy, the Word".

Axelle de Gaigneron - Connaissance des Arts

Félicien Marceau, the French academician who commissioned Goudji

to create his sword for the Academy, was among the first to appreciate Goudji's talent:

"<What strikes me most in Goudji's art, is the care he takes in instilling his objects with a mythical dimension whilst retaining their original significance. This art, transcending both time and space, reaching out to us from depth of the artist's own sensitivity, is resolutely rooted in the world to-day, which it also reflects. Goudji merges that magical moment, where beauty transforms reality without losing touch with it."

In 1975, Félicien Marceau commissioned Goudji to create the sword, "Amitié", he was to receive from the hands of C. Mauriac, during his ceremony of admission into the French Academy. Since then, nine members of the Institute have asked Goudji to design their Academician's sword : Professor Robert Turcan, Historian, elected to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres in 1990; Hélène Carrère d'Encausse, Historian and Political Scientist, who received her sword, "Joyeuse", from the hands of Henri Troyat; (received in 1991, Hélène Carrère d'Encausse is the third woman elected under the dome of the French Academy, and the first woman who chose to wear an Academician's sword); Jean Cluzel, Senate Rapporteur from the Information and Audiovisual Communication Budget, elected to the Academy of Ethics and Political Science in 1990, who was handed his sword by Maurice Schumann; Jacques Boré, President of the Lawyers Association at the State Council and at the Court of Appeal, elected to the Academy of Ethics and Political Science in 1992; Professor Maurice Allais, 1988 Nobel prizewinner in Economics, elected in 1992 to the Academy of Ethics and Political Science; Professor Paul Bernard, archaeologist, elected to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres in 1993; Professor Gilbert Dagron, Byzantine specialist, elected to the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Lettres in 1995; Bernard Destremau, Minister, elected to the Academy of Ethics and Political Science in 1996, who received his sword, created by Goudji, from the hands of President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing; and finally, Claude Sainteny, Historian, elected to the Academy of Ethics and Political Science in 1996, who sollicited Goudji for the creation of an emblematic medallion which she received from the hands of Henri Kissinger.

The sword of the French Institute is not a weapon, but a part of the Academician's uniform whose form and ornaments suggest the origins, career and interests of the recipient. For the creation of each Academician's sword, Goudji has chosen to use an earlier blade, "a blade that has a history", infused with symbolism and mystery.

Jacques Santrot

Curator of the Thomas Dobrée Museum

 

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