During 1855, the writer Arsène Houssaye devised the expression "forty-first seat" for deserving individuals who were never elected to the Académie, either because their candidacies were rejected, because they were never candidates, or because they died before appropriate vacancies arose.
V roku 1855 spisovateľ Arsène Houssaye vymyslel výraz „štyridsiate prvé kreslo“ pre tie osobnosti, ktoré by si zaslúžili byť členmi, ale sa nimi nikdy nestali, či už preto, lebo ich kandidatúry boli odmietnuté, pretože nikdy nekandidovali, alebo preto, lebo zomreli skôr, než sa pre nich uvoľnilo kreslo.