In Scott's Paris Revisited (A. D. 1815), we have the following interesting particulars of the removal of the celebrated pictures and statues from this famous emporium of the fine arts.

"Every day new arrivals of strangers poured into Paris, all anxious to gain a view of the Louvre, before its collection was broken up; it was the first point to which all the British directed their steps every morning, in eager curiosity to know whether the business of removal had commenced. The towns and principalities, that had been plundered, were making sedulous exertions to influence the councils of the allies to determine on a general restoration; and several of the great powers leaned decidedly towards such a decision.

"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.

"The guarding of the Louvre was committed by turns to the British and Austrians, while this process lasted. The Prussians said that they had done their own business for themselves, and would not now incur odium for others. The workmen being incommoded by the crowds that now rushed to the Louvre, as the news spread of the destruction of its great collection, a military order came that no visitors should be admitted without permission from the foreign commandant of Paris. This direction was pretty much adhered to by the sentinels as far as the exclusion of the French, but the words Je suis Anglais, were always sufficient to gain leave to pass from the Austrians: our own countrymen were rather more strict, but, in general, foreigners could, with but little difficulty, procure admission. The Parisians stood in crowds around the door, looking wistfully within it, as it occasionally opened to admit Germans, English, Russians, &c., into a palace of their capital from which they were excluded. I was frequently asked by French gentlemen, standing with ladies on their arms, and kept back from the door by the guards, to take them into their own Louvre, under my protection as an unknown foreigner! It was impossible not to feel for them in these remarkable circumstances of mortification and humiliation; and the agitation of the French public was now evidently excessive. Every Frenchman looked a walking volcano, ready to spit forth fire. Groups of the common people collected in the space before the Louvre, and a spokesman was generally seen, exercising the most violent gesticulations, sufficiently indicative of rage, and listened to by the others, with lively signs of sympathy with his passion. As the packages came out, they crowded round them, giving vent to torrents of pestes, diables, sacres, and other worse interjections.

"Wherever an Englishman went, in Paris, at this time, whether into a shop or a company, he was assailed with the exclamation, 'Ah! vos compatriotes!' and the ladies had always some wonderful story to tell him, of an embarrassment or mortification that had happened to his duke; of the evil designs of the Prince Regent, or the dreadful revenge that was preparing against the injuries of France. The great gallery of the Louvre presented every fresh day a more and more forlorn aspect; but to the reflecting mind, it combined a number of interesting points of view. The gallery now seemed to be the abode of all the foreigners in the French capital:—we collected there, as a matter of course, every morning—but it was easy to distinguish the last comers from the rest. They entered the Louvre with steps of eager haste, and looks of anxious inquiry; they seemed to have scarcely stopped by the way—and to have made directly for the pictures on the instant of their reaching Paris. The first view of the stripped walls made their countenances sink under the disappointment, as to the great object of their journey. Crowds collected round the Transfiguration—that picture which, according to the French account, destiny had always intended for the French nation: it was every one's wish to see it taken down, for the fame which this great work of Raffaelle had acquired, and its notoriety in the general knowledge, caused its departure to be regarded as the consummation of the destruction of the picture gallery of the Louvre. It was taken away among the last.

"Students of all nations fixed themselves round the principal pictures, anxious to complete their copies before the workmen came to remove the originals. Many young French girls were seen among these, perched upon small scaffolds, and calmly pursuing their labors in the midst of the throng and bustle. When the French gallery was thoroughly cleared of the property of other nations, I reckoned the number of pictures which then remained to it, and found that the total left to the French nation, of the fifteen hundred pictures which constituted their magnificent collection, was two hundred and seventy-four! The Italian division comprehended about eighty-five specimens; these were now dwindled to twelve: in this small number, however, there are some very exquisite pictures by Raffaelle, and other great masters. Their Titians are much reduced, but they keep the Entombment, as belonging to the King of France's old collection, which is one of the finest by that artist. A melancholy air of utter ruin mantled over the walls of this superb gallery: the floor was covered with empty frames: a Frenchman, in the midst of his sorrow, had his joke, in saying, 'Well, we should not have left to them even these!' In walking down this exhausted place, I observed a person, wearing the insignia of the legion of honor, suddenly stop short, and heard him exclaim, 'Ah, my God—and the Paul Potter, too!' This referred to the famous painting of a bull by that master, which is the largest of his pictures, and is very highly valued. It belonged to the Netherlands, and has been returned to them. It was said that the emperor Alexander offered fifteen thousand pounds for it.

"The removal of the statues was later in commencing, and took up more time; they were still packing these up when I quitted Paris. I saw the Venus, the Apollo, and the LaocoÖn removed: these may be deemed the presiding deities of the collection. The solemn antique look of these halls fled forever, when the workmen came in with their straw and Plaster of Paris, to pack up. The French could not, for some time, allow themselves to believe that their enemies would dare to deprive them of these sacred works; it appeared to them impossible that they should be separated from France—from la France—the country of the Louvre and the Institute; it seemed a contingency beyond the limits of human reverses. But it happened, nevertheless: they were all removed. One afternoon, before quitting the place, I accidentally stopped longer than usual, to gaze on the Venus, and I never saw so clearly her superiority over the Apollo, the impositions of whose style, even more than the great beauties with which they are mingled, have gained for it an inordinate and indiscriminating admiration. On this day, very few, if any of the statues had been taken away—and many said that France would retain them, although she was losing the pictures. On the following morning I returned, and the pedestal on which the Venus had stood for so many years, the pride of Paris, and the delight of every observer, was vacant! It seemed as if a soul had taken its flight from a body."