- Now, Before These Objects Of Art Were
Collected Here, They Were Distributed, Some In Churches, And Some In
Government Palaces.
To see the first, required a specific introduction to
the owner; to see the second, application to the attendants
Of the churches
became necessary, and for both these you were required to pay fees to the
servants and church-attendants, who are always impatient to take your fee
and hurry you through the apartments or chapels, scarcely giving you time
to examine anything. To be admitted into the Government palaces was a
matter of favour, and here also fees were required.[32] Here in the Louvre
there is no introduction required; no court to be paid to major-domos, no
favour; it is open to all classes, high and low, without exception, and no
money is allowed to be given.
But there are some people, in their ridiculous fury against the French
Revolution, who would fain persuade us that before that epoch there was a
golden age on the earth, that there were no acts of violence committed, no
frauds practised, no property injured, no individuals ill-used; that every
Prince governed like Numa; that every noble was a Bayard, and every priest
like a primitive apostle. Why I need go no further than the Seven Years'
war to show that in that war, during the height of European civilisation,
and carried on between the most polished nations in Europe, there were much
more acts of violence and rapine carried on than ever were done by the
French republicans.
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