Other names might be quoted, La Marquise de Pompadour, Cardinal Soubise, Girardot de Prefond, Fontette, Malesherbes, Marquis de Paulmy, etc.--then, the Revolution comes, the _ancien régime_ disappears and with it the dainty furniture, foppish dress, and the supremacy of an art market which with all its oddities were such perhaps as had never been seen since the time of the orgy of curio-hunting of Ancient Rome. This supremacy, deprived of many of its idiosyncrasies, temporarily crossed the Channel and went to England accompanied by many of the treasures that dealers and refugees managed to save from the cataclysm of 1779. Napoleon may be quoted as an exceptional art collector--if ever such a name can belong to a man utterly deprived of a sense of art but shrewd enough to understand the mighty support given to sovereigns by art--for in the process of time the man formed more than one art collection by methods that in their drastic character greatly resembled those adopted by Roman generals and proconsuls. This statement is eloquently supported by facts and numbers. Here is a laconic writing of Napoleon in which he informs the Directory of his first artistic “finds” in Italy. Speaking of his agents, he states: “They have already seized: fifteen paintings from Parma, twenty from Modena, twenty-five from Milan, forty from Bologna, ten from Ferrara.” This is, of course, his first experiment as a novice collector. Other things were to follow, the Medici Venus from Florence, the Roman Horses from Venice, and all the best works of art from the Italian museums, and these but foster more eclectic desires in this strange art lover, who while preoccupied with the problem of transporting heavy statues from Rome and harvesting antiques and Renaissance work, indiscriminately orders to be taken to France with the artistic booty the votive pen that Justus Lipsius left to the sanctuary of Loretto and the votive image left by Montaigne to the same sanctuary. The anecdote of Lucius Mummius of ignorant memory is here repeated in a way, for the officials acting under Napoleon’s orders have nothing to say about Montaigne’s ex-voto, but when it comes to the pen of Lipsius these worthies gleefully remark: “_La plume de Juste Lipse qui avoit été estimée cinq huitièmes, c’est trouvée peser six huitièmes_” (the pen of Juste Lipse which was supposed to weigh five-eighths, has been found to weigh six-eighths).