"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.