1908] Napoleon and the Louvre. 45 



AVEKKLY EVENING MEETING, 



Friday, Fel)niaiT 7, 1908. 



Sir James Criohtox-Browxh. M.]). LL.l). E.R.S., Tmisuivr 

 and Vice-President, in the C^liair. 



IIiT.AEPHRY Ward, Esq., ]\I.A. 



Napoleon and llie Louvre. 



The lecturer tonched upon the early attempts, under Louis XY. and 

 Louis XYL, to form a museum in the Salon Carrc'^ and the Long 

 (vallery, and described how, on the motion of Barere, this was 

 first carried out by the Conveution in 1791. At first the nuiseum 

 contained only the Avorks of art belonging to the Crown, mostly 

 removed from Yersailles ; but three years later, during the campaigns 

 in the Netherlands, the Republican Government formally adopted 

 the policy of seizing and annexing any masterpieces in the invaded 

 countries. The Representatives of the People with the armies of the 

 north boldly declared that any masterpieces existing in the countries 

 "where the victorious armies of the French Republic have just 

 chased away hordes of slaves hired by tyrants," could find their only 

 proper home " in the dwelling ]>lace and in the possession of free 

 men," i.e. in Paris ; and accordingly their Commissioner, Lieutenant 

 Barbiei", took all the Rubenses and Yan Uycks he could find, and 

 justified liimself at the l»ar of tlie Convention ]jy de(;laring tliat 

 '' these masterpieces had been too long sullied by beholding servitude." 

 The same treatment was applied to tlie libraries and galleries of 

 Aix-la-Chapelle, Tjouvain, and Cologne ; and from the Cniversity of 

 Louvain alone 5000 vohnnes were taken. So was the whole collec- 

 tion of the Statholder AVilliam Y. when he left Holland on the 

 approach of the French troops. In Italy, from the very beginning 

 of the campaign, Bonai)arte adopted the same policy, and carried it 

 out with amazing thoroughness, although some protests were raised 

 in Paris, and the well-known scholar, Quatremere de Quincy, got 

 fifty artists to join him in a petition that works of art should iiot be 

 taken. 



The lecturer showed lantern slides from engravings of the time 

 representing the stripping of the Parma Gallery, the taking away 

 uf the bronze horses from St. Mark's in Yenice, and the journey of 

 a convoy down the Tiber valley ; and he proceeded to describe 

 Bonaparte's Treaty of Tolentino, in 1797, by which he forced the 

 Pope to surrender a hundred works of art at the conqueror's choice. 



