The Académie Française and the Immortals
On 29 January 1635, Cardinal Richelieu formalised the mission of the Académie Française he had just founded the previous year: "Its role is to contribute to the improvement and influence of the language and literary arts... To give rules to our language, make it pure, eloquent and capable of dealing with arts and sciences."

In all fairness, he borrowed the idea from the Accademia della Crusca, founded in Firenze fifty years earlier and which had set out to formalize the dominance of the Tuscan dialect as the standard for the Italian language. Richelieu, as the prime minister of King Louis XIII understood the importance and power of language and its effect on our identity and culture.

To this day, the Académie still publishes its dictionary and determines every year which new words are or not part of the French language. The members of the Académie are known as the "Immortals" and the seal of the Académie displays the portrait of Richelieu and the motto "to immortality".