The Statesman.
London, England, 1815-10-11 00:00:00

To roe EDITOR or rex STATESMAN.

ete,—Whatever may have been the excesses of
the French, intnsicated by their brilliant achievements
under BONAPA RTE, tie it former guilt affords no.ese
cuse to the Combined Powers for violating their most
solemn engagements ; nor does it redound to their
credit that they should abuse a victory for wh?ch
they are more indebted to treachery and chance thin
to valour, heroic as it was, by treating France ai a
conquered country. If the fatal victory they ob-
tained on that memorable occasion, ensured them an
uninterrupted march to Penis, the very circumstances
under
ellich it was obtained, and the very extraor-
dimity gem! fortune that ensured them the triumph,
should have inspired them with a moderation equal
to the heroism that achieved it. It ought to have
bound them the more strongly to the fidelity of their
oti ti spontaneous Declarations. I will riot, however,
trespass on your time by discussing political goes.
tions, which are likely to he decided at no very dis-
tant period, in a mariner not very pleasing to those
who have so injudiciously provoked them. I shall
confine myself entirely to the indecency of destroy-
ing a museum, which, to the credit of the French,
was rescued from obscurity, perhaps ultimate obli.
iion, and had been brought by thjr zeal and efforts.
to a fon-4 as it were Tor the inspection of all man-
kind. The metropolis of France had become the repo.
sitery of the arts, to which genius could always have
freely access, and which the artist or the traveller were
allowed to visit without restraint ; where the former,
ambitious and impatient to improve his talents, was
at perfect liberty to devote himself to study undis-
turbed, arid the latter to gratify at once his curiosity
end his taste, in contemplating the assembled pro.
duetioos of genius. It will not be denied that, a
central situation for the splendid display of the arts,
was far more desirable than their remaining widely
dispersed in so many different quarters, as to render'
it almost impossiWe for the y utnig artist to have ac-
cess to them. It is out elways that genius is blessed
with wealth, neither is it always that afflaelice is ac-
companied by taste and liberality. The funds neces-
sary to defray the expences of yelling are, of
course, very scanty. A journey to It is not only
an expensise, but sometimes a hazardote. Jeder. I
taking ; and yet it is to tie ..graded metropolis of
an ancient Empire that our paiiite-s, sculptors, mu-
sicians, and architects, were obliged to tinsel to im-
prove themselves in the arts they respectively stu-
died, and amidst a people whose morals, owing to !,
the combined influence of climate and of a religion
pretending to extreme piety, but shamefully profligate
in the example of its Priests, are most shamefully
perverted. The French Government very properly
rescued those precicus monuments from Rome, the
centre of ecclesiastical deprasity and vice; and in
making Paris the depository of the arts, Lied of the
Ti 'loos of antiqwityt they restored thews as it wereel
,rope and to the world. The metropolis of
31k.... as tieing more central, independent of other
en„ not less important, ie surely better
1,1,111'..",l for a vilin4ilory of the productions of
s It4o Irdy. Peis rippers to be, without
receive's*, the hest situation for general collec-
ti et of a t.,1 hasp beer., n ith great pro-
priety demen: im ell the European M 40.11111; rod
were the aft Ist: of sit witions required to decide
the question, I have no doubt hot Wit Paris would
be :elected as the spot best ralculeted for an empo.
riern of the arts. It is, therefore, on the sc"te of
general convenience. that I contend the Allied
Powers ought In have allowed whet they see pleased
to call plunder, to have remained in France; and if
they thought any compensation due to those States
which pretend to hove been plundered, it would
have better secoided with their taste to have stipu-
lated diet a college should be erected ndj loins the
Museum, for every description of artists, the centre
buildiug of which to be rreproprdoed fur the recep-
tion of twelve foreign artists in succession, each
artist to be allowed a residence of two or three years,
and to be lodged and boarded for the trifling sum of
400 or 500 litres (say 201. sterling) per annum.
Such a stipulation, confirmed by treaty, would have
bevel an ample atonement for the attppoied wrong
done by France to the different Powers leagued
against her. It would, it. its effects, have proved a
stimulus to genius throughout the civilize(' world,
and led to improvements, the beneficial effects of
which would have been felt by posterity. France,
from her love 14 the arts, and her acknowledged
liberality, would have cheerfully submitted to terms,
which, though carrying the appearance of chas-
tisement, would have ensured to Europe n Museum
of equal splendour and utility, and preserved pro-
euctions which will probably be lost to their owners
and the world, by being transported in various di-
rections to nations little qualified to estimate their
value, and only reclaiming them from a vindictive
spirit of revenge, which is of no use to them, arid
becoming contemptible, like impotency contem-
plating what it cannot enjoy ! Such, Sir, would
have been the conduct of the Allied Powers, if their
invasion of France bad only for its object, as they
falsely pretended, the peace and salvation of Europe;
and however the disreputable prejudices of my
countrymen may be flattered by the fallen fortunes
of their neighbours, the future historian of 'the pre-
sent times will not fail to brand the conduct of the
Allied Powers, as !I mean and cowardly exaltation
ever vanquished France, overwhelmed indeed for
the present, by numbers corruptly purchased to eats-
due her, iu order to more effectually subdue the