 Early in the Ancien Régime, in 1635, the government of Louis XIII, controlled by Cardinal de Richelieu, established the Académie Française, with the mission of standardizing the French language. Before this institution came into being, there had been literary circles, which later scholars called salons, run by upper-class women and men for their select guests, that had fostered the production of new writings and held debates about how to refine the French language. The Académie Française brought some of this activity under national authority, granted it royal patronage, and controlled the membership, limiting it to exactly 40 men. Nevertheless, salons continued their work for the next centuries; they continued to patronize emerging talents and exerted a great influence on public reception of the arts.