The FRENCH ACADEMY held its annual public session on the 8th of August, in the presence of a large audience, including almost all the literary celebrities of the metropolis, both masculine and feminine. The prizes of victory were given to Napoleon Hurney, who had saved the lives of fourteen persons, and to Marguerite Briand, for having supported and taken care for forty-five years of her mistress, who had fallen from wealth into the extremest poverty. M. de Salvandy, who bestowed these prizes, delivered the usual eulogy on virtue in general, winding up with praise of Louis Philippe and his reign, a thing more creditable perhaps to the fidelity and consistency of the speaker, who has never renounced his allegiance to the Orleans family, than proper to the occasion. The literary prizes were distributed by M. Villemain. The grand prize of ten thousand francs for the best work on the history of France, was given to Augustin Thierry. Emile Angier received a prize of seven thousand francs for his comedy of "Gabrielle," and M. Antran one of three thousand for his "Daughter of Æsehylus." Three ladies got prizes worth two thousand francs each for works of a popular nature on moral subjects; M. A. Garnier got one of one thousand for his _Morale Sociale_; M. Martin the same for his _Philosophie Spiritualiste de la Nature_, and M. Kastus the same for his _Psycologie d'Aristote_. The crown for the best specimen of eloquence was awarded to M. Baudrillast for his Eulogy on Madame de Stael, in which the literary history and character of the subject were served up in the most florid style. The same writer once before won the same prize by a eulogy on Turgot. His productions are more elaborate and showy than substantial and permanent in their character. It must be said that this Academy is rather a respectable and slow-moving institutution. The most illustrious names of France are not always included in the list of its members. Neither Beranger nor Lamenais belong to it. A writer in the Paris _National_ says that after three hours at its meeting everybody he met in the street seemed to belong to the time of Louis XI. * * * * *