Abstract
Although the term " musée universel " does not appear in 19th-century sources , the idea that the Louvre, then Napoleon's museum, is the most beautiful museum in the world is found in numerous texts published at the time, notably in the writings of its first director, Dominique Vivant-Denon.
Even after the fall of the Emperor, Vivant-Denon endeavored to present the Louvre in all its glory, and to invite the Allied sovereigns, who had just crushed France and its hero, in the hope that they would hesitate to dismantle such an admirable ensemble. The idea of universality concealed in his discourse is that the success and, above all, the possibility for all Europeans to come into contact with this collection legitimize the maintenance in Paris of works taken under more or less irregular conditions.
This idea was directly echoed by the number of testimonies provided by the occupying troops at the same time. The museum, presented as a place of freedom and access to works of art, but also as a place of aesthetic emotion, aroused the admiration of all its visitors, including those involved in the recovery of the works, and therefore in the dismantling of its collections, and in any case in the organization of the returns.
In 1814-1815, the European intelligentsia therefore recognized the value of the Louvre's museum model, and the intellectual, emotional and historical interest of this place, but at the same time considered that the price to be paid to enjoy it was too high, since the price of the presence of these masterpieces in Paris was that of their absence everywhere else.
In addition to the paradox raised by this model of a universal museum, most sources from the period include a second argument, namely that the French don't really like the arts, only the accumulation of them, and that if the reunion created an exceptional whole, its usefulness would be much greater, or at least, the European public's interest in the various works was greater when they were scattered around churches, rather than gathered together in a single mass in Paris.
The dismemberment of the Louvre is thus of major historical interest, as it opens up a number of questions on the centralization, redistribution or fair distribution of works that will continue to occupy discourse and reflection on the museum in the decades to come.
