Participation in Scientific Inquiry in Early Modern France

        In 1666, King Louis XIV, at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, founded the French Academy of Sciences in order to encourage scientific thought and advancement within his country. The Academy of Sciences began with fifteen members, all selected for their solid educations and their understandings, however strong, of the sciences. In the beginning, fifteen men were chosen to be the founding members of the society. Along with their knowledge of some aspect of the physical sciences, each member had one thing in common--they were all members of the French noble class. Without this noble distinction, one would not be considered for election into the Académie. Because the Académie printed and cataloged all its scientists' studies in its journals, membership in such a society determined a scientist’s ability to achieve fame and credibility.

(King Louis XIV. of France (center, sitting) with his Minister Colbert (black robe, standing) during the foundation of the Académie des sciences)

This selection of members helped to solidify the social order that already existed in France and assured that it would apply to the French scientific community as well. Men who were not members of the highest social class, along with all women, were barred from becoming members of the Académie. The supported medical perspective of the time claimed that women could not be rational or credible scientists due to biological differences between men and women, and therefore the first constitution officially prohibited them from joining the Académie. In rendering these people ineligible to join the Académie, the French monarchy was essentially determining who would become the nation's leading thinkers.

(Colbert Presenting the Members of the Royal Academy of Sciences to Louis XIV in 1667 by Henri Testelin, c. 1775)

The exclusionary precedent set by the first members of the Académie had a long-lasting effect that is still seen centuries later. In the early 1900s, Marie Curie was one of the first women nominated to become a member of the Académie (although she did not receive enough votes to secure membership), and the Académie did not see its first female president until Marianne Grunberg-Manago was elected to the position in 1995.

(portrait of Marie Curie in 1921, ten years after the Académie failed to elect her as their first female member)