The seventeenth century saw new academies open in France, Germany, and elsewhere. By 1700 they were found in most major cultural centers. They helped local members contact like-minded intellectuals elsewhere in the Republic of Letters and thus become cosmopolitans. In Paris specialization was taken to new heights where, in addition to existing Académie Française and the Académie des Sciences founded in 1635 and 1666, there were three further royal foundations in the 18th century: the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1701), the Académie de Chirurgie (1730), and the Société de Médecine (1776).