Starting from 1705, Polichinelle demandant une place dans l’Académie (Polichinelle asking for a seat in the French Academy) was passed around as a manuscript in Parisian circles, and rumours credited it to Nicolas de Malézieu, although he never claimed authorship over it. The play was written as a revenge on the French Academy for having refused to elect Abbot Chaulieu – a candidate endorsed by the Duke of Bourbon-Condé and the Duke of Maine to replace Charles Perrault. It also makes fun of some members’ project of “purifying” the French language. It sparked a dispute which took the shape of responses written in verses, epigrams and songs, which were all combined by Abbot Régnier (the Academy’s Perpetual Secretary) in a manuscript entitled Relation de la querelle de Malézieu avec l’Académie (an Account of the dispute between Malézieu and the Academy). Malézieu himself had joined the French Academy in 1701.

The first edition of the text, in the anonymous collection Pièces échappées du feu (1717), specifies that the play was “performed on several occasions by Brioché’s puppets in the presence of the Court’s most eminent people”. This presumably meant that it was performed by one of the sons of François Datelin (alias François Brioché, 1620-1681): either Charles Datelin, born in 1673, or Louis Jean-François, born in 1679.

Although he mangles every word he says, Polichinelle lets his Voisin (neighbour) on his dream of becoming a member of the French Academy. He responds to every objection made to him and presents the speech he means to make to the members of the Academy.