at once gave the alarm to the police as soon as money was offered to him for the keys. Others say that he really did deliver them, and has, in consequence, been arrested. In any case, it is evident enough how on such occasions the most important posts in Paris are intrusted without any special precautions to the most unqualified persons. The very treasury itself was long in the hands of a speculator in public paper, a M. Kessner, whom the state should reward with the oaken crown for not gambling away on the Exchange a hundred millions of francs, instead of six, as he really did. So the gallery of the Louvre, which is rather the property of all mankind than of the French, might easily be made the scene of nightly riots, and thereby be destroyed.[1]
So the cabinet of medals has become the booty of thieves, who certainly did not take the treasure from love of numismatics, but to put them at once into the crucible. What a loss for science, when we consider that among the stolen antiques were not only examples of the greatest rarity,
- ↑ This insecurity still exists. When Henri Rochefort gave the diabolical order, "Faites flamber Paris," he was particularly desirous of destroying the Bibliothèque Nationale, and this library was only saved by the accidental breaking of a wire, which should have transmitted an electric current. So I read at the time in the newspapers; if it be untrue, I am willing to correct the statement.—Translator.
