66 TRANSACTIONS OF THE AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 



wrought them. The consent of the minister was obtained, and the 

 humane and enthusiastic marquis set to work and got up a most 

 attractive exhibition at St. Cloud, but on the very day it was 

 opened the Decree of the Directory went forth banisliing all th© 

 nobility from France, in which he was included. The fame of the 

 forthcoming exhibition, however, had spread over Paris. The na- 

 tional pride had been awakened by the announcement of the display 

 of those exquisite specimens of French industry. The court yard of 

 St. Cloud was filled with elegant equipages, its rooms thronged 

 with admiring and wealthy visitors, when in the midst of his 

 triumph the marquis received notice that he must instantly leave 

 the country; that he must in 24 hours be at least 30 leagues beyond 

 Paris under pain of death, and with liis departure the exhibition and 

 the humane object that gave rise to it terminated. " I had in imagi- 

 nation,"' he afterward said, " conceived the idea of an exhibition of 

 every product of national industry and manufacture." And when 

 a man has once got in his mind an idea of something that the 

 world has never thought of before, it is not very likely to leave it. 

 This was the case with the marquis. During three years of poverty 

 and exile that bright thought never quitted him, and when in 

 1*798, he with Talleyrand and others of the exiled nobility were 

 allowed to return, the first thing that he did was to devote him- 

 self to the carrying out of the project he had so long cherished. 

 He succeeded in obtaining the use of the Maison d'Orsay, a large 

 and beautiful building in Paris; and having done that he then 

 went among the leading artisans, manufacturers, and all engaged 

 in the industrial arts, and obtaining their co-operation, collected 

 together a most attractive and aristocratic display of articles of 

 French manufacture, which he opened as a free exhibition to the 

 public. It embraced the richest furniture, different kinds of inlaid 

 work, the finest watches of the world renewed L'Epine, the silks of 

 Lyons, the superb porcelain of Sevres and Angouleme, fine speci- 

 mens of printing, rich book binding, with many other things chiefly 

 of a luxurious character, with which were united the historical 

 pictures of David, the landscapes of Valenciennes and the flower 

 pieces of Pankouk. The experiment proved such a complete suc- 

 cess that the government resolved to follow it up immediately by 

 a more extensive exhibition under its own auspices. The period 

 was propitious. That portion of the years 1797 and 1798, which 

 in the French republican calendar is known as the year YI, was a 

 most eventful one for France — Bonaparte by the successive victo- 

 ries of Arcole, Rivoli and La Favorita, had made himself master of 

 Italy, Moreau had crossed the Rhine, and extended the boundaries 



