by Professor Yves Pouliquen, of the Académie française, current Chairman of theFoundation's Board of governors.

The most remarquable human endeavours make us ponder why they became what they are in the first place so that we can be their fortunate beneficiaries. The Singer-Polignac Foundation is one of them. Of course, the decison to give a legal frame to her longstanding action as a patron of the arts belonged to Winnaretta Singer, Princesse Edmond de Polignac and marked the Foundation's year of birth, 1928, but it would be more accurate to consider its existence as the ultimate consequence of the passion the Princess had had since her teens for music and painting. She was gifted as a painter, as evident in her canvases, and as a musician - the vault of the music room designed around her organ is still vibrating with the harmonies she composed there. There was also the attractiveness of Paris, her mother's birthplace, a city where an artist could not reach celebrity without attending one of its salons. Then, there was her encounter with Prince Edmond de Polignac, a fine composer, with whom she shared, as long as he lived, her immoderate craving for music. Last but not least, she had the strong desire to build this beautiful mansion, on the remains of the former hôtel particulier, and to create one of the most attractive residence of the capital.

And so it became, and even more, for the musicians for a start who often performed here for the first time the works the Princess had commissionned. Fauré, Chabrier, Ravel, Satie, de Falla and Stravinski are among the most famous. For the princess's friends too, whom she invited to her concerts, as reported in the press, among whom Marcel Proust, Colette etc. were the luminaries. It was also a gathering place for those who thought the princess could help them with their vocation or mission, the sculptors, painters, scientists, architects or trustees of charities. Such was the scope of the solidarity estate she had created, enclosed in a beautiful showcase, this magnificent hôtel particulier she would bequeath to the Foundation on her death in London in November 1943 so that her very singular, personnal vision would endure. This inheritance compels us to keep up with the spirit, the conscientiousness, the extraordinary openness of mind she displayed towards the arts, in music or the fine arts as well as science, and to encourage what her heart, at times, judged useful to do. It was the duties inherited by her successive legatees, and it is the duties that the current Chariman and Board of governors are bound to honour which they do with the feeling that they are in charge of an incomparable mission, that of serving the arts and sciences in the manner of the unforgettable patron of the arts, Princess Edmond de Polignac.