The Louvre was now destined to become for a few years the temple of the _spolia opima_ which the victorious French army brought home. “This system of levying pictures, statues, and other objects by means of treaties, so called, in which the conqueror dictated terms to those incapable of refusing them, was a dishonourable novelty in the annals of modern warfare. Disdaining the usages of Christian nations and overleaping especially the traditions of French courtesy and chivalry, Buonaparte turned back to the ages of pagan history for a precedent for his measures of spoliation.” By the Treaty of Bologna of June 23, 1796, and the Treaty of Tolentino of February 19, 1797, he became possessed of twenty pictures from Modena, twenty from Parma, forty from Bologna, ten from Ferrara, while Rome, Piacenza, Cento, Ravenna, Rimini, Pesaro, Ancona, Loreto, and Perugia also had to yield up a portion of their treasures. The first exhibition of this booty was held in the Louvre in January 1798. Here, during the next few years, were gathered together many of the world’s most famous pictures, including Raphael’s _St. Cecilia_, now in the Bologna Gallery; Correggio’s _St. Jerome_ and his _Madonna della Scodella_, now in the Parma Gallery; Raphael’s _Transfiguration_, now in the Vatican, and his _Madonna della Sedia_, now in the Pitti Palace at Florence; Domenichino’s _Last Communion of St. Jerome_, now in the Vatican; Titian’s _Martyrdom of St. Peter Martyr_, destroyed by fire in 1867, and his _Assumption_, now in the Venice Gallery; Van Eyck’s _Adoration of the Lamb_, now dismembered and distributed between Ghent, Berlin, and Brussels; Paris Bordone’s _Fisherman of St. Mark_, now in the Venice Gallery; and Paul Potter’s _Bull_, now at The Hague. “Here was seen the unexampled sight of twenty-five Raphaels ranked together, the great master complete in every period and walk of his art. Here twenty-three Titians glowed in burning row. Here Rubens revelled in no less than fifty-three pictures and in almost as many classes of subject. Van Dyck followed his illustrious master with thirty-three works, while thirty-one specimens of Rembrandt’s brush shed a golden atmosphere upon the walls. The later Italians especially were magnificently represented—thirty-six pictures by Annibale Carracci, sixteen by Domenichino; twenty-three by Guido; including the largest altarpieces by each; and twenty-six by Guercino, were perhaps the most popular part of the wondrous show.” However, in September 1815, the pictures and other valuable works of art which France had plundered from her foes had to be given back, and the spoliation of the Louvre began. In all, 5233 objects, of which 2065 were pictures, were taken away from the Royal Museum by the Allied Powers.