French Revolution
During the French Revolution the Louvre was transformed into a public museum. In May 1791, the Assembly declared that the Louvre would be "a place for bringing together monuments of all the sciences and arts". On 10 August 1792, Louis XVI was imprisoned and the royal collection in the Louvre became national property. Because of fear of vandalism or theft, on 19 August, the National Assembly pronounced the museum's preparation as urgent. In October, a committee to "preserve the national memory" began assembling the collection for display.
Read more about this topic: Louvre, History, 12th-20th Centuries
Famous quotes containing the words french revolution, french and/or revolution:
“The French Revolution gave birth to no artists but only to a great journalist, Desmoulins, and to an under-the-counter writer, Sade. The only poet of the times was the guillotine.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“They are our brothers, these freedom fighters.... They are the moral equal of our Founding Fathers and the brave men and women of the French Resistance. We cannot turn away from them, for the struggle here is not right versus left; it is right versus wrong.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“You don’t know what you might be if you would look beyond the ball, the opera, the fashion-plate—and right over the heads of the perfumed, mustached bipeds who call themselves men and worship at your feet.”
—Mattie Chappelle, U.S. women’s magazine contributor. The Revolution (April 28, 1870)