Montyon Prizes, rewards for signal instances of disinterested goodness discovered throughout the year, awarded by the French Academy, according to the will of Jean-Baptiste-Robert Auger, Baron de Montyon (1733-1820), who bequeathed £120,000 to public hospitals, and the remainder of his fortune to give sums of money to poor patients on leaving Paris hospitals, and to found the prizes since connected with his name. Already in 1782 he had originated the prize of virtue, but on his return to France in 1815 he arranged the scheme in its final form. The Academy of Sciences awards annually a prize of 10,000 francs to the individual who has discovered the means of making any mechanical occupation more healthy, another of equal value for improvements in medicine and surgery; while the Forty themselves award the prize of virtue, and another to the writer of the work likely to have the greatest beneficial influence on morality—both alike of 10,000 francs a year.
The last are usually divided among several recipients, and for these there seems to be a somewhat liberal standard of interpretation, for in a single year (1884), for example, we find awards given to a Journey to Japan, a Life of General Chanzy, a History of English Literature, and an Essay on Laughter. The same indulgence extends also to romance, all that seems required being some literary merit and a fair average of morality. Instead of rewarding works specially advantageous to morality, the Academy has been reduced to the necessity of crowning those which are content merely to respect it. In 1885 the Academy accepted a legacy of 10,000 francs to recompense particularly filial piety. A society was formed in 1833 to publish cheap lives and portraits of all men to be regarded as benefactors to their species; whether the benevolent, as Montyon, Howard, and Mrs Fry, or special originators like Jenner, Franklin, Davy, and Jacquard. A medal bearing the heads of Montyon and Franklin was struck at its foundation, and a gold medal is given every year. See Memoir of Montyon by Labour (Paris, 1881), and Taillandier's Prix de Vertu (1877).