Saving the Louvre

In 1939, as Hitler came knocking on the door of France, the keepers of the great art of Paris sprang into action. While Hitler’s art-loving henchmen headed to Paris with a shopping list of must-have pieces of art, the treasures of the Musée du Louvre were at the top.

Jacques Jaujard, the director of France’s National Museum, and René Huyghe, curator of paintings, devised a plan to save the art of the Louvre. On August 25, the Louvre was closed for cleaning for three days. However, what really happened behind the historic walls of the Louvre would alter the dictator's plans.

On those three days, the staff of the Louvre, students, and employees from the Samaritaine worked around the clock, removing paintings from their frames, rolling and packing. Beginning on the 28th and the days that followed, more than twelve hundred crates left the Louvre headed to the Loire Valley.

One special crate would travel on its own. The most famous painting of the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, would be packed separately in a box lined with English paper and wrapped in red silk. Marked with only the initials MN noted on the outside, she was strapped to a stretcher of an ambulance and hermetically sealed. 

When she arrived in Chambord, National Museum officer  Pierre Schommer passed out due to a lack of air but was thankfully revived. She moved on to the Château de Louvigny along with curator Andre Chamsen and kept moving every few months. Always trying to outrun the German forces as they came closer and closer.

Following the German surrender on May 8, 1945, the artwork began their return to the Louvre.

On June 16, 1945, the Mona Lisa was hanging back on the walls of the Musée du Louvre, and on October 6, 1947, the museum was reopened to the public. Without the quick thinking and work of Jacques Jauhard and René Huyghe and the countless people who gave their time, most of the Louvre would have been lost.

Listen to the whole story and the other times the art left the Louvre in this week’s Paris in Bleu Blonde Rouge podcast, out now. 

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Bonjour, bonjour, and welcome to another episode of Paris in Blue, Blonde, Rouge with Claudine Hemingway. And I am excited, as I am every week, to bring you another story. But this one, I probably say this every week, but this one is really one that I am in love with and obsessed with. And it was actually a documentary about the subject alone that probably was the beginning of my obsession with a specific French lady named Rose Vallonde and also the Louvre. There was a few other things, but I'll tell you about the documentary at the end so you could check it out as well. And a little bit about Rose Vallon, but she deserves her whole episode just for herself that's coming up pretty soon. But this is about more than one event that happened at the Musee de Louvre over time. And a lot of people know the big story, but there was actually a few other ones that happened before that. But the funny thing is, is these almost all happened around the same time at the end of August, three specific times over the last 200 years. And so I'm excited to share this one with you today. And I just went down quite a few rabbit holes and I shared last week with you about the liberation of Paris, and this ties in a little bit into World War II as well as the ones that preceded it. And who knows, maybe, you know, hopefully this never has to happen again at the Louvre, but it's all about the saving of the Louvre. So on August 25th, 1939, Hitler came knocking on the door of France and the keepers of the great art of Paris sprang into action. Jacques Joujard, who was the director of the French National Museum, and Rene Houguet, saved the Art of the Louvre and planned it for over a year. This is the evacuation that many have heard about, but it wasn't the first. In July 1830, the famous revolution captured by Eugene Delacroix put the Louvre in trouble for the first time. The Louvre opened in 1793 in the midst of the revolution and survived unscathed since it was given to the people. On those three glorious days in July of 1830, Victim de Caillot, a 93-year-old security guard, began removing the paintings from the walls of the Grand Galerie, which hung floor to ceiling. Working through the night, it took dozens of people on tall ladders to move them away from the walls of the Seine. Caillot created a quick sign saying respect the national property. As the rioters entered and fired their way through the locked doors, they didn't touch a thing. Five months later, on December 21st, they pushed their way in again, but the Louvre was left as it was. In February 1848, as the next king woke the revolutionists again, another sign was placed at the entrance and the Louvre was bypassed. In 1870, the Louvre came that's closest to disaster. On july eighteenth, Napoleon III declared war on Prussia. As troops moved closer to Paris, the evacuation of the Louvre began, setting the stage for what followed. On august thirtieth, 1870, they worked quickly for four days to pack the most precious pieces and send them to the military fortification in Brest. On September 1st, the Mona Lisa and the wedding feast at Cana left the Louvre. Over the next two weeks, 123 crates of paintings, sculptures, the crown jewels, and Algedar would join them. On January 6, 1871, the Venus de Milo was moved to a nearby prefecture on the Isle de la Cite, hidden behind a brick wall and covered with sandbags. The prefecture was destroyed, but Venus survived with just a bit of damage to the cement and glue placed between her torso and her hips. A month later, after a treaty was signed, the end was in sight, or so they thought. In the coming months the revolutionists returned and it would destroy many of Paris' historic buildings. In May 1871, for two days straight, the Palais de Tuileries burned. Flames ravaged and destroyed each historic wall, painting, and piece of furniture. Connected to what we know as the Musee de Louvre, flames threatened to travel through the Grand Galerie and the National Art Collection. However, there was a group of men who would do all they could to save what we now hold so dear. Henri Barbe de Jouilly was a curator of the National Museums and would later become curator of the Louvre. Buckets of oil were thrown in from the Pavillon de Fleur to the Pavillon de Marsin and across the entire Palais de Tuileries in between. Jouet with the help from Antoine Aron de Villefois, curators of antiquities, and the administrator Lyon Moran did all they could to save the collection on the nights of May 23rd and 24th, 1871. The Louvre curators were aided by the other real heroes of the moment. Martin de Bernard de Seigner, commander of the 26th Battalion de Chasseur à Pied, was called to the Tuileries on the night of May 24th. As the flames grew closer, he ordered his men to do everything they could to save the Louvre and the art it held. Using whatever weapons they had, they began breaking down doors and windows and even the roof to cut holes for the flames to escape. With his men he would save the Louvre, but his own life would be lost that night. Today a plaque hangs on the wall above the stairs leading to the Daru gallery, commemorating these great men. Jouet is buried in Per Lachaise, and with Signier, they will forever be known as the saviors of the Louvre. Most people rock right past and never notice or know their story. The next challenge will come in 1914. On August 1st, a few weeks after World War I began, items in the Louvre were moved once more. In the afternoon of August 24th, the Germans began to advance, and by noon the next day, August 25th, which would be significant day twenty five years later, the curators were told to quickly bring down the art. In those days, the art was attached to hooks in order for a quick release. Three days later they were told to pick up the pace. They removed large paintings like David's Sacre de Napoleon from their frames and rolled them onto large cylinders. Along with Venus, many of the treasures are put on a train in the darkened night and sent to the Jacobin Church in Toulouse. The largest painting in the Louvre, Verinese's wedding feast of Cana, remained behind a fake wall that was created to cover it. Wooden crates became scarce and worried curators packed the paintings directly into the back of trucks and covered them with a tarp. They removed 720 paintings along with a handful of objet d'art and sculptures. Over the next four years, more and more art was evacuated, but the Louvre remained open to the public, although only a few rooms of the Denal wing. At the end of November 1918, five years after the war, the art slowly returned to Paris, and by mid-February 1919, the Louvre was back to normal, although only for the next 20 years. The end of the war to end all wars also left curators and museum officials on edge, and they began to plan for what to do if it ever happened again. Members of the National Museum, including Deputy Director Jacques Joujar, considered the worst case scenario a full evacuation of the Museum of Paris. Jacques Joujar was born on December 3, 1895 and served in World War I for one year before he had to leave the war due to tuberculosis. After the war, he became a journalist and then a secretary to Paul Pen Levet and eventually worked at the Ministry of War, which brought him to the attention of the National Museum in 1925. In 1938, the Spanish Civil War raged in Madrid, and the Prado Museum and a committee of high-ranking officials asked Jaujar to help save its art. Seventy-one trucks packed with crates of the Prado collection traveled to Switzerland for safekeeping. It was a perfect trial run that Jaujar didn't know he would need. In August of 1938, the Musee National released two very large vaults at the Banque de France headquarters and began looking at other places in France they could use to store art. The state owned a few chateaus, but they needed many more. Each needed to be secluded, but also close to the water in case of fire, and they would shortly learn they also needed to be outside the occupied zone. Hitler had taken power and his plans were beginning to emerge. The frustrated artist who wasn't allowed into art school coveted the best pieces in Europe. He brought in the best art experts who compiled large books filled with pages of art by country to decide what he should take. A few of these books remain and his path through Europe can be traced through each page. On September 22nd, Hitler took Soudentalin and the plan was moved to the top of the pile. On Monday, September 26th, the Louvre received its official order. The next morning at 6 AM, several trucks left the Louvre for Chambord, carrying the most important paintings, the crown jewels and the Rubens Medici cycle. For the next four days, more pieces left until September 30th, when the Munich Agreement was signed and everyone took a breath. The war was over, or at least they thought it was. Quickly, the trucks returned to Paris. The Mona Lisa found her home again on the wall and things were calm for almost eleven months. On August 23rd, 1939, Germany and Russia signed a non-aggression pact. On August 24th, the museums of London closed, and on August 25th, the Louvre began its biggest evacuation yet. On the 25th, the Louvre was closed for quote unquote cleaning for three days. However, what really happened during those three days would alter the dictator's plans and his greedy looting. On those days, the staff of the Louvre, volunteers, and students worked around the clock, removing paintings from their frames, rolling, and placing them in crates. Jacques Chaujard worked closely with Rene Hougay, the curator of paintings. Houge was a French historian, art historian, and curator at the Musee de Louvre. Born on May 3rd, 1906, he studied philosophy at the Sorbon before attending the Ecot de Louvre. He may not be a household name, but he was part of one of the greatest moments in the history of the Musee de Louvre. Named the curator of paintings in the 1930s and a professor at the Ecot de Louvre, Huguet's life was all about art. On August 26th at 1 AM, the 50 most important paintings were put in crates once more. Jaujar and Huguet needed more help. The students of the Ecode Louvre and their theater employees were called in. Gabrielle Cognac, the nephew of Mary Louise Cognac and owner of the Samaritan, also served up on the National Museum Council and brought in all his trucks, crates, and employees to assist. Early Sunday morning on August 27th, the Cocari closed after an endless stream of trucks arrived in the dark hours. When the art was packed, a system of codes and stickers was utilized for the National Collection, MN, Houge's Painting Department, LP, and Antiquities LR. They added red stickers to the top priority pieces. Two red dots for the most important, green for the most significant, and yellow for the lowest significant. For the most famous painting, Madame Lisa was given three stickers and her crate was labeled MN. She was strapped to her gurney and rolled into a truck labeled 2162RM2 that Jacques would then ride ahead to the depot to know what to look for. On August 28, 1939, at 6 a.m. when all of Paris was asleep, out of the Cor Carré and onto the quay were the first eight trucks, including the Mona Lisa, the seated scribe, the crown jewels again, and 225 other crates. The entire quay along the Louvre was lined with trucks and drivers waiting for their loads. The same day at 2 p.m., six more crates left. On August 29th, the next 23 trucks left. As soon as they reached their destination, they quickly returned to Paris for more precious cargo. Twice a day until September 2nd, two convoys a day of nine trucks left the Louvre. Each driver put his life in danger with each mile. At first, many pieces were considered too fragile to move. Pastel paintings by Boucher and Degas found their way to the vaults of the Banque de France. Wing Victory, Venus, and Diane de Versailles and Michelangelo's slaves stayed in the Louvre under arches and piled with sandbags. At the start of September, the Germans moved into Poland and the workers were told to move faster. This time they needed to remove the wedding feast of Cana. Taken out of its frame and off its backing, the immense canvas was rolled onto a large oak log, longer than the twenty foot tall painting. David Sacre was rolled once more, but the huge painting wouldn't fit in the trucks that they had on hand. The Comedy Francais came to the rescue with large scenery moving trucks. The next issue was Jericho's raft of the Medusa. Taydor Jericho used bitumen, the tarry substance added to paint and darkened colors, but since it never fully dries, Hougay was worried the painting would be ruined if rolled. The painting was left on a stretcher, carried out of the Louvre, and placed on a truck along with a few other large works. Slowly making its way through the streets, a large pole was used to lift wires so the paintings could easily move through. Once the caravan reached Versailles, they forgot the trolley lines that are fixed in place. As the painting slid through, a loud crack was heard and sparks flew everywhere. The truck was moved sideways and the electricity to the entire city was cut, causing many to panic that the Germans had arrived. Madanatora, curator at the Louvre, rushed to the chateau and banged on the door until a pajama clad curator found the door in the dark. The raft and the other pieces were left at Versailles for a few days before they checked the rest of the route. On September 1st, 1939, World War II began and the rest of the art deemed too fragile for the Louvre needed better protection. The most precious and beautiful, Wing Victoria Samothrace, stands at the top of the Daru staircase. Her nine-foot figure, which weighs three and a half tons, was the biggest challenge. On September 2nd, she was tied up inside an open crate with a system of pulleys, chains, and ropes, and was slowly lowered down the 53 steps, covered with a few boards as everyone stood by holding their breath. That same day, 95 trucks of 120 crates left, but Victory, Venus, and the slaves remained. On September 3rd, 1939, England delivered an order to Hitler to stop and leave Poland within two hours. At 5 p.m., France declared war on Germany. By September 3rd, 90% of the Louvre was empty and things quickly stopped. Officials worried the Germans would be on the cobblestones of Paris any day now. But by the sixth, when nothing happened, the project resumed and convoys continued to move. At the end of the month, Jaujar decided the remaining art wasn't safe and needed to be removed. It took until the end of October on the 29th when Victory, Venus, and the slaves left in a convoy of 29 trucks to the Chateau de Valency in the Loire. Delacroix ceiling in the Gallery d'Apelon was rolled and just behind Victory on its way to safety. In just over five weeks, 2,000 crates in more than 200 truckloads left the Louvre filled with 3,691 paintings and thousands of objects, furniture, and sculptures from not only the Louvre, but from the Cluny and the Carnival, as well as some high-valued personal collections given to the Louvre for safekeeping. 599 crates from Versailles, 1,400 from the Musee des Arts Decoratif, and 6,000 crates from private collectors. The Chateau de Chambourg dates back to 1519 when Francois Primier wanted a hunting lodge on the edge of the forest. He intended to live there, but in the end he only spent 42 days and 35 years. Its immense size, the largest in the Loire, played a key role in the evacuation of the Louvre. As the art left the Louvre, all convoys stopped at Chambour to be inventoried and then transferred to their final destination. Chambour had drawbacks because of its size. It was highly visible from above, and its double staircase designed by Leonardo da Vinci made it difficult to move crates of art. The doorways were also quite low, and many were damaged in the process. Delacroix Apollo ceiling remained along with the Department of Drawings collections and prints given by Edmund de Rothschild. Archivist Lucy Mozaric brought along thousands of books and files from the archive collection, many of which I still benefit from today. The Musee de l'Arme today houses many models of French cities created under Louis XIV. They also found protection in the Chateau de Chambord. Other chateaus included Fauger sur Berve, Chevernay, Valency, Louvigny, Cotalin, Cherauperien, Le Palis, and Eure. They thought everything through. Curators and guards traveled with the caravan. When the first convoy rolled through the small towns, the tarp covered trucks got lots of looks. Many thought the circus was coming into town. Little did they know it was wing victory flying through. The painting department consisted of 3,691 pieces and had to be split out into multiple locations. They needed to be near each other so curators and restorers could travel quickly as they worked. At the Abbe de la Palis and the Chateau de Louvigner, most paintings were hidden away. Louvignet also had the other large frame paintings. The Chateau de Chaparillon had the large world paintings, including the Sacre de Napoleon, the Wedding Feast of Cana, and Gros Napoleon in Jaffa. The raft of the Medusa had to stay in Versailles a bit longer until they were sure they could make the trip safely to Chambourg. On the back of an open scenery truck, it garnered detention wherever it went. While the other trucks in the convoy traveled to Chambourg, they did so in the dark without lights. Upon arriving at the chateau, they realized a truck was missing. It was filled with the Watteau's paintings. They found her the next morning as the sun came up on the banks of the river Loire. The driver mistook the lights of a bicycle for another truck. When they packed the Mona Lisa, they wrapped her in a special paper to absorb humidity and placed her in a red silk lined box. When she left Paris, she left in a hermetically sealed truck. When she arrived at Chambord, the National Museum officer Pierre Chumet passed out due to the lack of air but was thankfully revived. She moved on to the Chateau de Lavigner along with the curator Andre Chanson. Chanson was the assistant curator of Versailles just before the war. Born on June 6, 1900 in Nimes, he began his job at the Louvre just weeks before the war was even a whisper. Chanson met Lucy Mozarac and the two married on July 26, 1924. When the art moved, so did they, along with their daughter Frederic. As an archivist, her collection and job was to move the important art and that hung on the walls and that they held in the armoire, the most important piece in the Louvre collection. In the Petit Salon de Chateau de Lauvigny, La Jaconde was hidden away and brought out every week to check out for moisture. Their daughter Fredericks said in this amazing documentary and what started me on my journey, The Rape of Europa, that she remembered her father opening it up and pulling back the red silk. As the war raged on, the location of art hung in the balance and decisions along the way had to be made. In the spring of 1940, the Germans closed in, getting closer and closer. On May 16, 1940, a large plume of smoke could be seen from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d'Orsay as they tossed archives out the window into a burning pile to destroy before the Germans arrived. Jaujar knew that art wasn't safe and needed to be moved. The isolated Abbe de Locdoux was chosen as it was eighty miles northeast of Toulouse and farther into the country. The threat of being seen moving was far greater than the first time. There was also fewer staff, trucks, fuel, and time to make the move. Four paintings were excluded from the move the Wedding Feast of Cana, the Sacre de Napoleon, Napoleon visiting Jaffa, and the Battle of Ilo. It was thought that the three paintings depicting Napoleon and the wedding feast, being one that Napoleon stole, may have a higher value to Hitler and the Germans. The one place Hitler had to visit on his one day in Paris was the tomb of Napoleon. On May 29th, 1940, Jauchard and Germain Bazin, assistant curator, built a timeline for moving on the art. A few curators refused to take part as it was a very dangerous undertaking. Once the move began, it took three days because of the busy, horrible roads, but everything arrived on time. Over the next five years, much of the art moved three times before it finally returned to Paris. The Mona Lisa moved six times, with her caretakers and family moving right along with her. At each location she had her own room and guards. On December 26, 1944, the last German bombs were dropped in France, but the art stayed put. On April 30th, 1945, Hitler killed himself, and a week later, on May 7th, the Germans surrendered to the Allies. Now curators faced a new obstacle. The cold and lack of coal in Paris made it almost impossible to heat the large galleries of the Louvre. The cold and rising visitor temperatures caused humidity, one of the worst enemies of art. On June 15, 1945, at 5 a.m., the first convoy of art left the Chateau de Montel. Two hours later, all three and a half tons of wing victory left for Paris on a truck provided by the British Army. It took nine hours to go 150 miles back to Paris. The next day, Delacroix Liberty leading the people as well as Boucher and Vateau paintings. The collection you see in the Orsay today was once in the Louvre, along with the French and Italian masters. The Louvre evacuation also included Van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, and all the other impressionists. On June 21st, Wing Victory was back on her base at the top of the Daru staircase. The entire staff of the Louvre stood by to watch her make her slow push up the steps that would take over two hours. Of course, they stopped for lunch for 90 minutes before completing her move, and she was once again sitting atop her ship. On June 30th, Venus and the Michelin slaves returned. It had been six years since they had last seen inside the Louvre. In the following weeks, the rest of the art antiquities, crown jewels, furniture, and more returned to Paris. Since the Louvre wasn't ready yet, they held a special exhibit in the smaller rooms off of Wing Victory beginning on July 10th, 1945, where 83 paintings, including the Mona Lisa, could finally be seen again. While the art was gone, curators worked to restore and conserve many of the most important pieces, although the Mona Lisa was never touched. Larger paintings didn't return until February 1946, and the Belle Almond joined the Louvre collection after Goring traded for her. Today she is down at the ground level in a side room just off the Cor Lufelle without a mention of her travels. One of the last pieces to return was the one that made its greatest exit. Jericho's Rafe to the Medusa, which had such a sparkling start, finally returned on July 9th, 1946 from the Chateau de Socher with eight other large paintings. Fun little note, the Chateau de Socher is the Descartes family, which is the same family as the former director of the Louvre, Laurence Descartes. On October 17th, 1947, after eight years, the Louvre was finally open to the public. While it was closed, they also developed a new strategy for hanging the art. Before the war, the paintings were much closer together and stacked on top of each other. Now, after the remaining workers inventory the frames and the chalk marks on the wall, they plan new, more spacious layout we see today. The story is amazing, and there's there's even I could even, of course, go on for hours about it. And I think that's my biggest challenge with this podcast is trying to figure out where to stop because I could just keep going on and on and on. But again, I'll probably do more another time. But if you want to know more about this, the documentary that I mentioned is called The Rape of Europa. It was done in 2006. I looked online. You could buy it or rent it on Amazon or Apple TV. It is fantastic. It is so great. It's also, so 20 years ago, I became obsessed with all of it. That's where you'll learn a little bit about the monuments man, a little bit about Rose Valonde who was such an integral part of saving so much of the art that was stolen from mostly Jewish families and galleries. And it's just, it's so, so great. There's also a book that I love that I've actually read at least two times. And in fact, mine is literally falling apart. I was going through it this morning looking looking for some of the pictures of World War One. And it literally, like the first 40 pages, are just loose and falling out. It's called Saving the Mona Lisa. It's by Jerry, we'll say channel, because I can't say it the other way. C-H-A-N-E-L. But it is such a fantastic book. Literally, like it's just so, so good. If you want to know more about that. Also, you know, there's the of course, you know, we'll do a whole nother episode about what they did when they saved the art. And there's so many historical fiction books written about this, but I do implore you to also read some actual nonfiction books about it and what really happened and not people's take on it. But it's really a fantastic, fantastic story. And I have asked the people that I know that work at the Louvre, I said, you know, do you have a department now? Is there like a group of people or is there somebody that has a plan today now? If the Louvre had to, you know, God forbid, empty it again, is there a plan? Do they have that? And they didn't know, but I guarantee that they do. There's no way that they couldn't. But the com I've tried over the years to get a better number of exactly how much was in the Louvre at that time in 1939, but the Louvre itself was, you know, much smaller. You didn't have any the Richelieu wasn't part of the Louvre. You only had the first floor of the Denon, which is where all the big stuff is now, and below that where there's statues, and then part of the Soley Wing. So it wasn't, it definitely, you know, it was probably a fifth of the size that it is today. So if they had to do this and they had to empty it again, you know I would be right there to help them. But it would be such an insane undertaking. I found a year or so ago at my favorite kind of used bookstore, I call my crack dealer, this piece. It's actually inside the Louvre piece about when they redid all of the rooms in 1933. And it is incredible. And I found it for like, I think it was like less than a euro. And it's just amazing. I've I looked online one time and it was selling for like, you know, somebody was selling it for like 500 euros. But it's incredible, and I want to share more about that with you guys someday because that almost needs its own thing. But it was just great because that's 1933 before World War II. So it gives you a little idea of the layout of what was in there. But I do have some guidebooks too that I have found that date back to before the war and after the war. The size of the Louvre didn't change a whole lot. After the war, you know, the biggest change was in the 1980s when they, after they did the pyramid and and expanding to the Richelieu and expanding more into the Sully Wing. So it's, you know, a big, much, much, much bigger today. But it is such an amazing story. These, these people, these curators that traveled with the art, you know, literally put their life on the line. It was at the end of the war that they had come. Some Germans came to a chateau and and basically knocked on the door, and it was the crown jewels were like literally right there, like inside the door, hiding in a wall. And they were like, What's going on here? Why we we've seen this movement, what's going on? And and finally they said, you know, oh, well, we you have the art from the Louvre. And they the Germans said, Well, we don't care about that. But it was the end of the war. So because it was the end of the war, they were like, whatever. Had that happened even a year before that, you know, we could have lost uh so many things. But the Louvre in the end did not lose one single piece of art to the Germans in World War II. But there was one, and I mentioned a statue of Bel Armande. There was one piece that ended up going to Orin Gerning, who is just ugh the worst, going to him that they gave to him basically just as a kind of you know, a band-aid to just keep him from trying to take anything else. But luckily it's back in the Louvre, and I love to go visit her. And I'm gonna do a whole thing just about her. So make sure you are following me on Instagram, Claudine Blue Blanc Rouge. And I'm now officially, as of this week, moving my newsletter over to Substack. And you could find me on Substack as Claudine Hemingway or Blue Blanc Rouge. And so make sure to find me in all those places. And I look forward to sharing so much more specifically on this chapter and this subject even more in the future. Merci and Abiento.