V. Costumes, weapons, accoutrements, tools, furniture, industrial productions, &c.—both ancient and modern—of non-European races. VI. Pre-historic Antiquities.[46] To the enrichment of the fourth section of this new department of the Museum (in a small degree), as well as (much more largely) to that of the Classical Collections, the choice treasures gathered in France during two generations by successive Dukes of BLACAS largely contributed. [Sidenote: THE BLACAS MUSEUM AND ITS FOUNDERS, 1815–1860.] The first of these Dukes, Peter Lewis John Casimir de BLACAS, was born at Aulps in the year 1770. He was of a family which has been conspicuous in Provence from the beginning of the Crusades. Attaining manhood just at the eve of the Revolution, the Duke followed the French princes into exile, and warmly attached himself to LEWIS THE EIGHTEENTH, to whom, in after years, he became the minister of predilection, as distinguished from that monarch’s many ministers of constraint. He had, in his own day, the reputation of being a courtier; but seems to have been, in truth, an honest, frank, and outspeaking adviser. One saying of his depicts quite plainly the nature of the man, and also the nature of the work he had to do:—“If you want to defend your Crown, you musn’t run away from your Kingdom.” Those words were spoken in 1815; and, as we all know, were spoken in vain. A statesman of that stamp—one who does _not_ watch and chronicle the shiftings of popular opinion, in order to know with certainty what are his own opinions, or in order to shape his own political ‘principles’—rarely enjoys popularity. DE BLACAS became so little popular at home, that the King was forced to send him, for many years, abroad. At Rome, he negotiated the Concordat (1817–19); at Naples, he advised an amnesty (1822), together with other measures, some of which were too wise for the latitude. In the interval between his two residences at the Court of Naples, he took part in the Congress of Laybach. [Sidenote: FORMATION OF THE BLACAS MUSEUM.] The opportunities afforded by diplomacy in Italy and in other countries were turned to intellectual and archæological, as well as to political, account. He imitated the example of HAMILTON and of ELGIN, and that of a crowd of his own countrymen, long anterior to either. Since his son’s death, the British Museum has, by purchase, entered into his archæological labours almost as largely—in their way and measure—as it has inherited the treasures of its own enlightened ambassadors at Naples and at Constantinople.