Collège de France

The Collège de France is recognizable by the austere, neoclassical facade facing the Rue des Écoles, punctuated by high windows and a carved stone frieze. Founded in fifteen thirty by King Francis the First, the institution exists to teach what is not yet taught elsewhere. Professors here do not have students, grant degrees, or require tuition. Instead, they deliver free public lectures on their current research. When the chemist Marcelin Berthelot taught here, he often conducted experiments right on the lecture podium.