Nobel Prize Wilhelm Röntgen's discovery of X-rays and Philipp Lenard's work on cathode rays. The Academy of Sciences selected Röntgen for the prize. In the last decades of the 19th century, many chemists had made significant contributions. Thus, with the Chemistry Prize, the Academy "was chiefly faced with merely deciding the order in which these scientists should be awarded the prize". The Academy received 20 nominations, eleven of them for Jacobus van 't Hoff. Van 't Hoff was awarded the prize for his contributions in chemical thermodynamics. The Swedish Academy chose the poet Sully Prudhomme for the first Nobel Prize in Literature.
M. and Mme. Joseph Prudhomme Paris middle-classes). Paul Verlaine found inspiration from him for “Monsieur Prudhomme,” one of his "Poèmes saturniens". Sacha Guitry wrote a play in 1931 called “Monsieur Prudhomme a-t-il vécu?”, freely inspired by Monnier’s life, and relating to the genesis of the character. André Franquin drew inspiration from the character for his own maire de Champignac (1950) in the cartoon series "Spirou et Fantasio", another character with pontificating logorrhea. M. and Mme. Joseph Prudhomme Monsieur and Madame Prudhomme were a pair of French caricature characters of the 19th century, created by Henry Monnier. They were a bourgeois couple. Monsieur Prudhomme first appeared