Friday Tour - Musee de Louvre

Today our tour guide Jacques took us around the Richelieu wing of the Louvre Museum.  This is the newest part of the building (19th century) and in fact was only connected to the rest of the building with the glass pyramid about 20 years ago.

We started in the courtyard which is covered over with glass so is inside now.  Here there was 4 great statues of men and horses which used to stand at Place de la Concorde (there are now copies of them there!) the originals being too precious to stand outside in all weathers any longer.  Even earlier they had been in the grounds of a royal castle at Marly which is no longer there.

We toured the collection of Mesopotamia artefacts dating from about 3000 BC.......  The first ever written code of laws is on display there!

Then we saw some very precious French pieces which had been saved from various churches around France.  Saved because the Revolutionaries would have destroyed them if the priests and other people of the church had not managed to rescue them.  This included the coronation sword which was used to "crown" every King of France from the 1200's and the only remaining royal sceptre. 

Then coming right up to the 19th century we saw the only remaining state rooms of the Napoleonic era (Napoleon the 3rd).  I know that the royals (and then Napoleon) used to live in the Tuileries palace and I always wondered where it was and today I discovered that it in fact burnt down.  The fire was deliberate......and was stopped where the building meets the Louvre (phew) so some rooms were saved from the Napoleon 3rd time.  Overly lavish, over the top Victorian style.  Very cute "conversation" chairs though.....