“Before actual force was employed, representations were repeated to the French government, but the ministers of the king of France would neither promise due satisfaction, nor uphold a strenuous opposition.  They showed a sulky disregard of every application.  A deputation from the Netherlands formally claimed the Dutch and Flemish pictures taken during the revolutionary wars from those countries; and this demand was conveyed through the Duke of Wellington, as commander-in-chief of the Dutch and Belgian armies.  About the same time, also, Austria determined that her Italian and German towns, which had been despoiled, should have their property replaced, and Canova, the anxious representative of Rome, after many fruitless appeals to Talleyrand, received assurances that he, too, should be furnished with an armed force sufficient to protect him in taking back to that venerable city, what lost its highest value in its removal from thence.

“Contradicting reports continued to prevail among the crowds of strangers and natives as to the intentions of the allies, but on Saturday, the 23d of September, all doubt was removed.  On going up to the door of the Louvre, I found a guard of one hundred and fifty British riflemen drawn up outside.  I asked one of the soldiers what they were there for?  ’Why, they tell me, sir, that they mean to take away the pictures,’ was his reply.  I walked in amongst the statues below, and on going to the great staircase, I saw the English guard hastily trampling up its magnificent ascent:  a crowd of astonished French followed in the rear, and, from above, many of the visitors in the gallery of pictures were attempting to force their way past the ascending soldiers, catching an alarm from their sudden entrance.  The alarm, however, was unfounded; but the spectacle that presented itself was very impressive.  A British officer dropped his men in files along this magnificent gallery, until they extended, two and two, at small distances, from its entrance to its extremity.  All the spectators were breathless, in eagerness to know what was to be done, but the soldiers stopped as machines, having no care beyond obedience to their orders.

“The work of removal now commenced in good earnest:  porters with barrows, and ladders, and tackles of ropes made their appearance.  The collection of the Louvre might from that moment be considered as broken up for ever.  The sublimity of its orderly aspect vanished:  it took now the melancholy, confused, desolate air of a large auction room, after a day’s sale.  Before this, the visitors had walked down its profound length with a sense of respect on their minds, influencing them to preserve silence and decorum, as they contemplated the majestic pictures; but decency and quiet were dispelled when the signal was given for the breaking up of the establishment.  It seemed as if a nation had become ruined through improvidence, and was selling off.