Foreign News: The Green Fever

In French high cultural circles, mere excellence is not considered the whole guarantee of immortality. The distinguished men who at any one time occupy the 40 chairs of the famed Académie Française enjoy a specific patent of immortality that dates back to Cardinal Richelieu. But many of France's greatest writers have been barred from the academy for reasons that had little to do with their greatness. The academy's mythical "41st chair," reserved by legend for those who never made the grade, has been occupied by such greats as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, whose loose living and houseful of illegitimate children were too much for the academicians; Encyclopedist Denis Diderot, who was a deal too outspoken; and plump, ill-dressed, Bohemian Honoré de Balzac, who seemed just too much of a mess.

Last week the 34 living members of the ancient Académie took a bold step in amending its reputation for crusty conservatism by receiving into their august midst a literary figure as contentious as he is unpredictable. The new member: Jean Cocteau, poet, painter, novelist, dancer, movie producer (Blood of a Poet), playwright, poseur and talker. Now 66 and still savoring his reputation as France's esthetic enfant terrible, Cocteau in times past has taken a gamin's delight in cocking a snook at the stuffy academicians. But things change, he explained, and "one wants to be oneself and yet the opposite." Like others before him, nonconformist Cocteau had succumbed to "the Green Fever," the desire to wear the gold-embroidered green uniform of the academy's Immortals.

Humble Pie. "When our number is 40, they mock and tease; when we're 39, they're down on their knees," runs an old academy jingle. However talented and rebellious, aspirants to this particular Olympus must first appease the gods-in-being by eating a certain amount of literary humble pie. An applicant must beg for admission in terms as carefully prescribed as an ancient Hittite ritual; his friends must sedulously woo the Immortals in his behalf. "Is your poetry any good?" snapped a windy old Immortal at Victor Hugo when he was seeking entrance. "I have been told, sir," answered Hugo, "that it is as fine as your speeches, but I don't believe it."