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The Paradoxes of Vandalism: Henri Grégoire and the Thermidorian Discourse on Historical Monuments

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The Abbé Grégoire and his World

Abstract

I awaken, like Epimenides, after a sleep of twelve years. My arms, weary of their chains and withered by misfortune, thrust aside my tombstone. My head abandons the long mourning of winters. My opening eyes are blinded by the new light: they see nothing. The first rays of the dawn flicker over piles of stones sullied by Vandalism; nature groans amidst the debris of politics.

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Notes

  1. An initial version of this text was published as “Grégoire, Lenoir et les ‘monuments parlants’,” in Jean-Claude Bonnet, ed., La Carmagnole des muses, L’homme de lettres et l’artiste dans la Révolution (Paris: Armand Colin, 1988), pp. 131-154. I thank Jean-Claude Bonnet and his research group at the CNRS/Sorbonne for their comments and support.

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  2. For Ledoux’s last years see my Claude-Nicolas Ledoux. Architecture and Social Reform at the End of the Ancien-Régime (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1990), especially pp. 363-394.

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  3. Philippe Roger, “Le débat sur la ‘langue révolutionnaire’,” in La Carmagnole des muses, pp. 157-181.

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  4. See Alois Riegl, “Der moderne Denkmalkultus, sein Wesen, seine Enstehung,” [1903], in Gesammelte Aufsätz, ed. Kurt Swoboba (Augsburg, 1929), pp. 144-194; English translation by Kurt Forster and Diane Ghirardo, “The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and its Origin,” Oppositions, no. 25, pp. 21-50.

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  5. See the detailed study of revolutionary projects in Wemer Szambien, Les projets de l’an II, Paris: Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, 1986.

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  6. For the origins of this metaphor in 18th century linguistic and historical theory, and its transposition into the vocabulary of architecture see Anthony Vidler, The Writing of the Walls. Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment, Princeton, 1987.

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  7. Léon Dufourny, quoted in Aux armes et aux arts!, p. 29.

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  8. Aux armes et aux arts! Peinture, sculpture, architecture, gravure. Journal de la Société républicaine des arts, rédigé par Athanase Détournelle, Première partie. Du 1er vendémiaire au 1er prairial, Paris: chez Détournelle (s.d.), p. 29.

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  9. Ibid., p. 71.

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  10. G. W. Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais sur l’entendement humain [1765], in Philosophische Schriften, Vol. 6 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1971) Leibniz spoke of the “figurative character, which speaks truly to the eyes; and which would be strongly to the liking of the people, as, in effect, the peasants already possess certain almanachs, which tell them without words a good part of what they want to know.” Ibid., Book IV, Chapt. VI, p. 398. “ Aux armes et aux arts!, op. cit., p. 226.

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  11. Administration du département de police de Paris, A.N. Mss. 666, dossier S, quoted in Daniel Hermant, “Destructions et vandalisme pendant la Révolution française,” Annales. E.S.C. 33 (1978), p. 711.

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  12. Petition prepared by Bienaimé, Barthélémy Vignon, Detournelle and Balzac, architects, Aux armes et aux arts!, op. cit., p. 14.

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  13. Aux armes et aux arts!, op. cit., p. 14.

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  14. Ibid., p. 220: “Rapport de David fait à la Convention nationale.”

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  15. See the excellent account of the relationship between “vandalism” and the Terror, by Bronislaw Baczko in Comment sortir de la terreur (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1989), translated into English by Michel Petheram as Ending the Terror. The French Revolution after Robespierre (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

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  16. Aux armes et aux arts!, op. cit., p. 102.

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  17. Alexandre Lenoir, Lettre, 30 frimaire an II (20 Décembre 1793), in Inventaire général des richesses de la France. Archives du musée des monuments français, Premier partie. Papiers de M. Albert Lenoir et documents tirés des archives de l’administration des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1883), p. 16.

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  18. Paul Léon, La vie des monuments français (Paris, 1951), p. 63.

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  19. François Furet, Denis Richet, La révolution français (Paris: Fayard, 1973), p. 473.

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  20. Henri Grégoire, Convention nationale. Rapport sur les inscriptions des monumens publics, 22 nivôse, l’an 2, 9.

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  21. Ibid.

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  22. Ibid., p. 5.

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  23. Ibid., p. 10.

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  24. On Henri Grégoire, Constitutional Bishop of Blois, Deputy to the Convention for Loir-et-Cher, and member of the Comité de l’Instruction publique, see Pierre Marot, “L’abbé Grégoire et le vandalisme révolutionnaire,” Revue de l’art 49 (1980), pp. 36-39; James Guillaume, Grégoire et le vandalisme (Paris, 1901); Charles Lyon-Caen, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de l’abbé Grégoire (Paris, 1922); P. Grunebaum-Ballin, Henri Grégoire, l’ami des hommes de toutes les couleurs (Paris, 1948). The last three studies take partisan positions against the “vandalism” of the Revolution, as do many of the more general histories of monumental restoration, such as Louis Réau, Histoire du vandalisme. Les Monuments détruits de l’art français, 2 vol. (Paris, 1959); Gustave Gautherot, Le vandalisme Jacobin. Destructions administratives, d’archives, d’objets d’art, de monuments religieux à l’époque révolutionnaire d’après les documents originaux en grande partie inédits (Paris, 1914). For a clear account of the politics of the “discourse on vandalism,” see Daniel Hermant, “Destructions et vandalisme pendant la Révolution française,” Annales E.S.C. (1978), pp. 703-719, who examines the debate between republican and catholic historians on the extent of Revolutionary vandalism.

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  25. For a detailed account of the policies of the Convention towards the arts, see Louis Tuetey, ed., Proçès-verbaux de la Commission temporaire des arts, 2 vol. (Paris, 1912-1917).

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  26. M. H. Carnot, Mémoires de Grégoire, ancien évéque de Blois, 2 vols. (Paris, 1837), p. 348. Grégoire mentions the response of Carl August Boëtiger, in Neue Bibliothek des schönen Wissenschaften (Leipzig, 1795), p. 5, translated in Le Mercure allemand (1795).

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  27. Ibid., p. 345.

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  28. Athanase Détournelle, ed., Aux armes et aux arts! Peinture, sculpture, architecture, graveur. Journal de la Société populaire et républicaine des arts séante au Louvre, Salle du Laocoon (Paris, 1794 [an II]), p. 71.

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  29. L’abbé Grégoire, Instruction Publique. Rapport sur les destructions opérées par la Vandalisme et sur les moyens de le réprimer (Paris, 14 Fructidor an II [1794]), p. 11.

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  30. Abbé Grégoire, Instruction Publique. Rapport sur les destructions opérées par la Vandalisme et sur les moyens de le réprimer (Paris, 14 Fructidor an II [1793]), p. 1.

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  31. M. H. Carnot, Mémoires de Grégoire, op. cit., p. 347.

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  32. Ibid., p. 16.

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  33. Ibid., p. 15.

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  34. Ibid.

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  35. Abbé Grégoire, Instruction publique. Second rapport sur le vandalisme (Paris, 8 Brumaire, an III), p. 1.

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  36. Grégoire, Troisième rapport sur le vandalisme, 24 Frimaire l’an troisième.

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  37. M. H. Carnot, Mémoires de Grégoire, ancien évêque de Blois, 2 vols. (Paris, 1837), p. 343. Grégoire remembered that he had often displeased the Parisians, when, at the tribune of the Conseil des Cinq-Cents, he had ironically remarked that if it were in their power they would no doubt transport to Paris entire monuments, such as the Pont du Gard, the Maison Carrée and the Arènes at Nîmes.

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  38. Grégoire, Instruction publique. Rapport sur la bibliographie, 22 germinal, an 2, 13.

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  39. Troisième rapport sur le vandalisme, op. cit., p. 11.

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  40. Ibid., p. 18.

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  41. Ibid., p. 6.

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  42. Ibid., p. 7.

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  43. Grégoire, Instruction publique. Rapport sur la bibliographie, op. cit., p. 14.

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  44. Alexandre Lenoir, Musée des Monuments français ou Description historique et chronologique des statues en marbre et en bronze, bas-reliefs et tombeaux des hommes et des femmes célèbres pour servir à l’histoire de France et celle de l’art, vol. 1 (Paris, an IX [1800]), p. 50.

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  45. For Alexandre Lenoir and his Musée des monuments français, see, firstly, his journals edited by Louis Courajod, Alexandre Lenoir, son journal et le musée des monuments français, 3 vol. (Paris, 1878-1887); Lenoir published his own account of the Museum and its contents in Musée des monumens français, ou description historique et chronologique des statues en marbre et en bronze, bas-reliefs et tombeaux des hommes et des femmes célèbres pour servir à l’histoire de France et à celle de l’art, 8 vol. (Paris, 1800-1821); a good survey of the literature before 1969 is in Bruno Foucart, “La fortune critique d’Alexandre Lenoir et du premier Musée des monuments français,” L’information d’histoire de l’art (1969), pp. 223-232; Christopher M. Greene, “Alexandre Lenoir and the Musée des Monuments Français during the French Revolution,” French Historical Studies, XII,2 (Fall 1981), pp. 200-222, is a good historical introduction as is the more recent study by Dominique Poulot, “Alexandre Lenoir et les musées des monuments français,” in Les Lieux de Mémoire: II. La Nation, 3 volumes, edited by Pierre Nora, Paris, 1986, volume 2, pp. 497-531. For Lenoir’s contribution to architectural history see Stephen Bann, “Poetics of the Museum: Lenoir and Du Sommerard,” The Clothing of Clio. A study of the representation of history in nineteenth-century Britain and France (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 77-92; Anthony Vidler, “Architecture in the Museum,” The Writing of the Walls. Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (Princeton, 1987), Chapter 11.

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  46. Alexandre Lenoir, “Rapport au Comité d’instruction publique, 1795,” Inventaire général des richesses de la France. Archives du musée des monuments français. Premier partie. Papiers de M. Albert Lenoir et documents tirés des archives de l’administration des Beaux-Arts (Paris, 1883), p. 24.

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  47. Lenoir, quoted in Biographie universelle. Supplément, Vol. 71 (1842), p. 295.

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  48. See Suzanne Thouronde, “Le couvent des Petits-Augustins,” L’information d’histoire de l’art (October 1964).

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  49. Lenoir, Musée des monuments français, op. cit., I, pp. 7-8.

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  50. Ibid., p. 180.

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  51. Ibid., p. 181.

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  52. Ibid.

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  53. Anonymous [“x”], “Notice de la salle du XIVe siècle,” Athenaeum (April 1806), p. 1.

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  54. Lenoir, Musée des monuments français, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 110.

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  55. Ibid., p. 114.

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  56. Lenoir, Musée des monumens français, I, p. 16.

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  57. As cited by Christopher Greene in “Alexander Lenoir and the Musée des Monuments Français,” pp. 216-217.

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  58. Quoted by Lenoir in Musée des monuments français, Vol. I, p. 8.

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  59. Jules Michelet, Ma jeunesse (1884), p. 45.

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  60. Quatremère de Quincy, Rapport fait au Conseil général sur l’instruction publique, la restitution des tombeaux, mausolées, etc. (Paris, Year VIII)

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  61. Ibid., p. 344.

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  62. Louis-Pierre Deseine, Opinion sur les musées ou se trouvent retenues tous les objets d’arts, qui sont la propriété des temples consacrés à la religion catholique (Paris, floréal an XI [1801]), p. ii.

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  63. Ibid., p. 5.

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  64. Ibid., p. 46.

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  65. Ibid., p. 7.

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  66. François-René Chateaubriand, Génie du christianisme [1802], in Oeuvres complètes de Chateaubriand, Vol. 2 (Paris: Garnier, 1826), p. 406.

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  67. “Ruines et Antiquités,” Journal des arts, des sciences et de littérature, 124, 20 Germinal an 9, 62.

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  68. Ibid. For a discussion of the “museum” concept in architecture, see my The Writing of the Walls: Architectural Theory in the Late Enlightenment (Princeton: Princeton Architectural Press, 1987), pp. 165-167, and for more detail on Cassas and his project, Werner Szambien, Le musée d’architecture (Paris: Picard, 1988).

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  1. Anthony Vidler
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Kentucky, Lexington, USA

    Jeremy D. Popkin

  2. Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri, USA

    Richard H. Popkin

  3. UCLA, Los Angeles, California, USA

    Richard H. Popkin

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Vidler, A. (2000). The Paradoxes of Vandalism: Henri Grégoire and the Thermidorian Discourse on Historical Monuments. In: Popkin, J.D., Popkin, R.H. (eds) The Abbé Grégoire and his World. Archives Internationales D’Histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 169. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-4070-6_7

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