la petite academie et moi

At the end of my interview today, my professor/Colbert "offered me a job" to work as one of his advisors on la petite academie among the ranks of Jean Chapelain and others!!

An imaginary job has never meant more to me.

P.S. One quick thing I remember from my midterm interview. Professor "Colbert" McGinness brought up an image of Rigaud's famous portrait of Louis XIV to, as he so put it, "set the tone" for our meeting. I laughed and politely pointed out to Colbert what a beautiful portrait it was, but how curious for it to appear given that Rigaud finished it in 1701 and our interview was taking place in 1675. For a moment he looked a little surprised. I doubt he was expecting me to know that, much less call him out on the anachronism. I quickly added, "I hear Rigaud is currently training with Lebrun. He seems to have talent. We should definitely recruit him to paint this in a a decade or two." A few seconds of silence. Then Colbert smiled at me and quipped, "Yes...he is probably still crawling these days, isn't he?"