In countersigning the statute of 21 March 1816, he aided the controversial reorganisation of the "Institut de France", perhaps persuaded by a letter from Jean Baptiste Antoine Suard, secretary in perpetuity of the "Académie française": "I can never tire of repeating that there is manifest in this institute a remnant of the Revolutionary spirit, whose influence must urgently be quelled by wise foresight working through statutes which you shall put into effect"; this statute gave him the direct power to name nine of the eleven academicians.