The four arches bordering the Great Hall are dedicated to four institutions of learning that preceded the US Academy of Sciences. The Académie des Sciences was founded in Paris in 1666, under the auspices of Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Louis XIV to promote French science and give glory to "The Sun King." The Académie became a focus for the new observational and experimental sciences that developed outside the traditional university curricula. While its Italian counterpart was entirely private, and the English Royal Society was endorsed by, but hardly supported by their king, the French academy was fully an arm of the royal court. By the French Revolution in 1789, the Royal Academy was viewed more as a symbol of the Old Regime than as an agent for the advancement of science. The wry critic and "Young Turk" Voltaire commented "They haven't done much research, but the members have published many volumes of compliments." It was disbanded in 1793, then reorganized and reopened in 1795 as the Institut National des Sciences et des Arts. Though it shared certain functions with the Royal Academy, it ceased to play a central role in scientific research. By the 19th century, science had outgrown this centralized institution and flourished once again in universities and in the new institutions, such as specialized laboratories.
