Académie des Jeux floraux

The Académie des Jeux floraux occupies the Hôtel d'Assézat, a sixteenth-century mansion near the Pont Neuf. Established in thirteen twenty-three, it holds the record as the oldest literary society in the Western world. Seven founders—gentlemen and merchants of Toulouse—created the group to sustain the tradition of troubadour poetry, awarding a golden violet to the winner of their first competition in thirteen twenty-four.