Jean Chapelain (4 December 1595 – 22 February 1674) was a French poet and critic during the Grand Siècle, best known for his role as an organizer and founding member of the Académie française. Chapelain acquired considerable prestige as a literary critic, but his own major work, an epic poem about Joan of Arc called "La Pucelle," (1656) was lampooned by his contemporary Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux.
The Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (French pronunciation: [akademi dez‿ɛ̃skʁipsjɔ̃ e bɛl lɛtʁ]) is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the Institut de France. The academy's scope is the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy), historical literature (see Belles-lettres) and the cultures of the civilizations of antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the classical period, as well as those of non-European civilizations.