Treasures of the Louvre Page #7

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Now, it's what we recognise

properly as a museum,

full of works of art

from all ages and cultures,

and a place for

scholarly investigation.

In its way, this was

a cultural revolution.

And speaking of revolution,

what had happened to

the French taste for it?

MUSIC:
"La Marseillaise"

After 15 years of monarchy,

the barricades went up in Paris.

For three days, between the

27th and 29th of July 1830,

there was street-fighting

across the city to challenge

the autocratic rule of Charles X.

"Les Trois Glorieuses",

as it was known in revolutionary

folklore, is naturally commemorated

here with this fine and thrusting

monument at Place de la Bastille.

But one young French artist

wanted to do things his own way

to commemorate this July Revolution.

He wanted something

more sweeping, more daring,

something more epic,

and what he did is in the Louvre.

28th of July, Liberty Leading

the People by Eugene Delacroix,

is to be found in the Salle Rouge.

In 1830, Delacroix had written

to his brother that he was

taking on a modern subject,

a barricade.

"If I haven't fought for my country,

at least I'll paint for her."

The painting that emerged from his

studio was the hit of the Salon.

It's realistic.

Delacroix used real people as

models to depict real events,

but it's also allegorical.

There's bare-breasted Marianne,

bayoneted musket in one hand,

the Tricolour flag of

the Republic in the other,

the personification of

Liberty in revolution.

This Republican Amazon

leads young and old

and all classes to the barricades.

Here, the top-hatted

figure of some means,

and here

the pistol-packing student.

At their feet, the dead,

a Royalist National Guardsman

and this semi-naked figure,

surely copied from

Gericault's Raft of the Medusa

that Delacroix knew so well.

And it all takes place against

the smoking backdrop of Paris,

the Republican flag hanging

from Notre Dame in the distance.

And the colours used here,

red, white and blue of course.

There is, perhaps, no more iconic

image in all of French history.

And it didn't take long for the

street-fighting men and women,

commemorated by Delacroix,

to be at it again.

As Karl Marx observed,

"History was repeating itself."

Revolution in 1848 was,

in that very French way,

followed by reaction.

The nephew of Napoleon,

Louis Bonaparte,

came to power by coup d'etat

that ended the short-lived

Second Republic,

and like his uncle, declared

himself Emperor of a Second Empire.

At the heart of this Empire would

be a city of Grands Boulevards

and buildings built

by Baron Haussmann.

And the Louvre was to become

the symbol of a modernised Paris.

In 1852, a new Louvre Project

was announced that would complete

the Grand Dessein by connecting

both sides of the Louvre

to the Palace of the Tuileries.

The old tenement buildings

and stalls

that had been part of the

site for centuries were

bulldozed to make way for

this vision of the future.

The Louvre was once more to be

a focus for political power.

The Emperor would rule from here.

It would be the site of government,

with bureaucrats in the new wings

working away for France,

and it would be a symbol

of French cultural power,

with its magnificent museum.

The sheer ambition of this

project was explained to me

by Daniel Soulie.

HE SPEAKS FRENCH

TRANSLATOR:
'We say in France

'that Napoleon really gave

"the full packet".

'It was a full-on Imperial project.

'He threw limitless money, limitless

people and limitless resources at it.

'The Emperor had a hand in everything

that happened in the Louvre,

'so all possibilities were open.

'He ordered that where the little

town had sprung up here behind us,

'the Richelieu Wing should be built,

'and the Denon Wing on

the other side over here.

'With these two new wings, he was

able to enclose the space and create

'a courtyard of vast proportions,

right at the centre of the building.'

Grandeur on the outside was

reinforced by opulence within.

Again, no expense was spared.

Just look at all this luxury.

The walls, the fittings,

the carpets and the furniture.

What does it remind you of?

Yes, Louis XIV,

and that was deliberate.

This Second Empire style

was a self-conscious

and some said vulgar way

of aping the Sun King.

But Louis Bonaparte wanted

everybody to know that his Louvre

was as much a glittering reflection

of his Imperial eminence

as any in the past.

But the destruction

of the old Louvre

was mourned by one poet and critic.

Charles Baudelaire was a

regular visitor to the museum.

It was a warm and comfortable

place to meet his mother.

He once took a five franc whore

to look at the ancient statues.

She professed to be

scandalised by the nudity.

Baudelaire was a great admirer

and friend of Delacroix,

who in 1851, had completed this

ceiling in the Galerie d'Apollon.

They were romantic soul brothers.

Of the painter he wrote,

"Delacroix was passionately

in love with passion

"but coldly determined to express

passion as clearly as possible."

But while Baudelaire loved the art

inside the Louvre with passion,

he hated what had happened outside.

In 1857, a collection of his poems

was published, The Flowers of Evil.

In it there's one poem, The Swan,

which captures his melancholy

over what had been lost here

and elsewhere in Paris.

The rickety tenements, the market

stalls and the poor in pocket

but rich in heart.

HE RECITES IN FRENCH

TRANSLATION:
'Paris changes! But

in my melancholy nothing has moved

'New palaces, blocks,

scaffoldings, old neighbourhoods

'Everything for me is allegory

'And my dear memories

are heavier than stone

'And so outside the Louvre

an image gives me pause

'I think of my great swan

His gestures pained and mad

'Like other exiles

both ridiculous and sublime

'Gnawed by his endless longing.'

Baudelaire had lost his beloved

Paris, but the city created

by Haussmann for Louis-Napoleon is

one that you can still enjoy today.

And I for one never fail

to be impressed by its scale,

its straight lines and symmetry.

But it wouldn't take long

for the Emperor to lose the capital,

and with it, his Louvre.

In 1870, he entered

into a disastrous war with Prussia.

France was occupied

and Paris put under siege.

After military defeat,

Louis Bonaparte left the Louvre for

the last time and went into exile.

In Paris, barricades went up

for one final time,

as a Commune was declared.

The Communards took control

of the city in the spring of 1871.

At first, it was all done

in a traditionally festive mood.

En fete.

On the 16th of May, the Communards

knocked down the mock Roman column,

here on the Place Vendome

that had been erected

as yet another tribute

to Napoleon's military exploits.

Then, around midnight,

the revolutionary fiesta moved on.

Around 300 Communards broke into the

cellars of the grand Hotel du Louvre

where they helped themselves

to the finest wines and smoked...

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