PRINCE ALBERT I OF MONACO BOULE 503 



present at the session at Monaco still recall the success of this gather- 

 ing, enriched with all the delights of a truly princely hospitality. 

 May I be permitted to here express regret that after the terribly 

 sterile period of the Great War anthropologists have not recognized 

 that instead of seeking to create a new more or less international 

 organization they should devote themselves to reviving an institu- 

 tion whose brilliant past should vouch for the future? 



The Prince, pleased with the results which he has thus obtained, 

 looked only for a new opportunity to render further services to the 

 study of human paleontology. Such an opportunity was not long in 

 presenting itself. On all sides discoveries relative to Quaternary art 

 were multiplying. Cartailhac returned from Altamira with port- 

 folios full of photographs and crayon sketches cleverly drawn by M. 

 Breuil. In his enthusiasm he had made magnificent chromolitho- 

 graphic plates for the work which he intended to publish with his 

 collaborator. But he soon perceived that the undertaking was too 

 great and beyond his moderate financial means. With the help of 

 that learned and lamented archivist of the Palace of Monaco, Gustave 

 Saige, I had no difficulty in interesting the prince in the incom- 

 pleted work. He generously took over all the expense of the publi- 

 cation of this magnificent volume entitled "Altamira," to-day in 

 every large library in the world, which is only the beginning of the 

 list of a series of magnificent volumes devoted to the description of 

 the mural paintings and engravings of the Paleolithic caverns. 



M. Breuil was particularly adept in this new form of investigation. 

 The prince gave him every facility for pursuing his work not only in 

 France but also in Spain; and it is to this interest that the broad 

 scope of prehistoric studies in the Iberian peninsula, a development 

 of which we have been for some years the admiring witnesses, is due. 



This period of about 10 years immediately preceding the terrible 

 phenomenon of human retrogression provoked by Germany in 1914, 

 was in France truly a great period for human paleontology and pre- 

 history. Investigators were numerous ; they made valuable observa- 

 tions and sometimes important discoveries in all parts of France. 

 In the Pyrenees, already well known through the finds and the 

 investigations of Piette, it was shown by Cartailhac, Breuil, and 

 Begouen that many of the caves were real museums of Quaternary 

 art whose masterpieces they hastened to make known to us through 

 preliminary publications. In the Dordogne, Riviere, Capitan, 

 Peyrony, Bouyssonie (I mention only the most able or the most 

 fortunate workers) also made great discoveries. Doctor Lalanne 

 revealed to us the superb frieze of sculptured horses and the bas- 

 reliefs of human figures of Laussel. And, at the same time, MM. 

 les Abbes Bardon and Bouyssonie exhumed the man of Chapelle- 



