worded criticism of the security at the national museums. The government needed a scapegoat, and the director of the Louvre was the obvious choice.
Jean Théophile Homolle, director of all the national museums of France, was a courtly man with a considerable reputation as an archaeologist and scholar. His specific area of expertise was ancient Greece, and in profile, his sharp, clean features resembled an Arcadian marble. But even if his head had been chiseled by Phidias, it would have rolled given the virulent climate in Paris.
Homolle had led the first archaeological dig at Delphi, and if he had been in Paris at the time of the theft, in all likelihood, one of the gossip sheets would have pictured him consulting the oracle for clues. But in the summer of 1911, he had traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula, where archaeologists were beginning to uncover the civilization of the Maya—a world reclaimed by the jungles long before Cortés reached Mexico. Homolle dugthrough the lost empire without any idea that his own world was disintegrating. One of the last to learn that Mona Lisa was missing, he was the first to pay for her disappearance.
In 1911, the perception of distance and time was changing. Horseless carriages and bicycles rolled down the grand boulevards of Paris. The first metro rumbled underground. A national railway network carried the Paris dailies to the provinces and brought the bumpkins to the big city. The Continental Train Bleu picked up English travelers in Calais and sped them to Paris, then on to Berlin and St. Petersburg. The eleven years from 1900 to 1911 saw the first flying machines, the first bus (called an autostage), the first moving pictures, and the first newsreel. A monoplane crossed the Channel successfully from Dover to Calais, and a balloonist tried unsuccessfully to cross the Atlantic.
Although telegraph, cable, and telephone were shrinking the gap between the time news was made and disseminated, the Yucatan jungle was beyond their reach. The urgent message dispatched by the minister of Beaux Arts to the director of the Louvre had to be relayed from Paris to New York to Havana to Veracruz, then by mule through the jungle to the base camp, and from there carried along narrow footpaths to the site of the dig. Homolle set out immediately on the arduous overland trek. The director and his team hacked their way through the overgrown forests down the steep, stony mountain. Monkeys cackled like a Greek chorus in the branches overhead.
Paris had its own outraged chorus of politicians, press, and public decrying the oversight at the Louvre. Although the porous security had been an open secret for years, the museum had either remained silent on the subject or had come up with bizarre solutions—such as training the old guards in judo or arming them like gendarmes with pistols, nightsticks, and whistles. Steps were finally being taken to address the problem.The protective glass, much criticized, was one step, and additional security precautions, including a personal guard for Mona Lisa, were planned. Before leaving on vacation, Homolle had assured a skeptical press, with uncharacteristic bravura, that the Louvre was now secure. “You might as well pretend that one could steal the towers of the cathedral of Notre-Dame,” he had boasted.
In the
avant-guerre
years, hyperbole would come back to haunt those who employed it. The
Titanic
was unsinkable, and the Louvre was impenetrable.
The
Paris-Journal
ran a photograph of Notre-Dame with one tower missing below the headline: COULD THIS HAPPEN TOO?
Le Figaro
deplored the lax security and denounced a government that “cannot guard the museum. Everything yet known about the theft shows a lamentable carelessness and extraordinary forgetfulness in the most elementary duties.”
The best scholar doesn't always make the best administrator, and Director Homolle was far from blameless. The Louvre lacked the simplest precautions against theft, adopted decades
Jean Théophile Homolle, director of all the national museums of France, was a courtly man with a considerable reputation as an archaeologist and scholar. His specific area of expertise was ancient Greece, and in profile, his sharp, clean features resembled an Arcadian marble. But even if his head had been chiseled by Phidias, it would have rolled given the virulent climate in Paris.
Homolle had led the first archaeological dig at Delphi, and if he had been in Paris at the time of the theft, in all likelihood, one of the gossip sheets would have pictured him consulting the oracle for clues. But in the summer of 1911, he had traveled to the Yucatan Peninsula, where archaeologists were beginning to uncover the civilization of the Maya—a world reclaimed by the jungles long before Cortés reached Mexico. Homolle dugthrough the lost empire without any idea that his own world was disintegrating. One of the last to learn that Mona Lisa was missing, he was the first to pay for her disappearance.
In 1911, the perception of distance and time was changing. Horseless carriages and bicycles rolled down the grand boulevards of Paris. The first metro rumbled underground. A national railway network carried the Paris dailies to the provinces and brought the bumpkins to the big city. The Continental Train Bleu picked up English travelers in Calais and sped them to Paris, then on to Berlin and St. Petersburg. The eleven years from 1900 to 1911 saw the first flying machines, the first bus (called an autostage), the first moving pictures, and the first newsreel. A monoplane crossed the Channel successfully from Dover to Calais, and a balloonist tried unsuccessfully to cross the Atlantic.
Although telegraph, cable, and telephone were shrinking the gap between the time news was made and disseminated, the Yucatan jungle was beyond their reach. The urgent message dispatched by the minister of Beaux Arts to the director of the Louvre had to be relayed from Paris to New York to Havana to Veracruz, then by mule through the jungle to the base camp, and from there carried along narrow footpaths to the site of the dig. Homolle set out immediately on the arduous overland trek. The director and his team hacked their way through the overgrown forests down the steep, stony mountain. Monkeys cackled like a Greek chorus in the branches overhead.
Paris had its own outraged chorus of politicians, press, and public decrying the oversight at the Louvre. Although the porous security had been an open secret for years, the museum had either remained silent on the subject or had come up with bizarre solutions—such as training the old guards in judo or arming them like gendarmes with pistols, nightsticks, and whistles. Steps were finally being taken to address the problem.The protective glass, much criticized, was one step, and additional security precautions, including a personal guard for Mona Lisa, were planned. Before leaving on vacation, Homolle had assured a skeptical press, with uncharacteristic bravura, that the Louvre was now secure. “You might as well pretend that one could steal the towers of the cathedral of Notre-Dame,” he had boasted.
In the
avant-guerre
years, hyperbole would come back to haunt those who employed it. The
Titanic
was unsinkable, and the Louvre was impenetrable.
The
Paris-Journal
ran a photograph of Notre-Dame with one tower missing below the headline: COULD THIS HAPPEN TOO?
Le Figaro
deplored the lax security and denounced a government that “cannot guard the museum. Everything yet known about the theft shows a lamentable carelessness and extraordinary forgetfulness in the most elementary duties.”
The best scholar doesn't always make the best administrator, and Director Homolle was far from blameless. The Louvre lacked the simplest precautions against theft, adopted decades
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