[Author's note]

   We know that the immediate (and necessary) election of Barrès is assured. A new and very interesting review that has just been founded under the ingenious direction of M. Paul Fort and that could not be too highly esteemed and recommended, Vers et Prose, has given us enormous pleasure in announcing that the election of our cherished and noble Henri de Régnier, that powerful and delightful writer, is imminent. Our pleasure will be more complete still if a third seat is reserved for a philosopher, an artist about whom we have already and shortly will have the occasion to express our profound admiration, M. Maurice Maeterlinck. As for knowing whether a great writer ought or not to enter the Académie, the question must be settled on an individual basis, according to personal preferences and decisions. There can be no strict rules. The fact that Flaubert did not want to be part of the Académie is not enough to consecrate as a great writer all those contemptuous of the Académie, any more than, in spite of the inverse example of Victor Hugo, a poet grows in stature by being an academician. The most absolute spiritual "commandments" and the most meticulous must remain mute on this point and resign themselves to the wishes and the disposition of each. It is a matter of individual well-being.