Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 268, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 November 1914 — SAVING THE VENUS OF MILO [ARTICLE]

SAVING THE VENUS OF MILO

Extraordinary Precautions Taken to Guard Art Treasure Imposslblo to Replace. When, during the war of 1870, the German army drew near the French capital, one of the first measures the Parisians took was to place the art treasures of the Louvre in safety. The paintings of Raphael, Titian, Paolo, Veronese, Rembrandt and Rubens were carefully packed and shipped to Brest, There they could, If necessary,* be put on shipboard and taken from the country. - It was not so easy to Save the pieces of marble statuary, for their weight and fragility made them difficult to handle; but the French determined that the famous Venus of Milo, at least, should not fall Into the hands of the Prussians. ,

So they took her down from her pedestal and laid her in a casket carefully padded and wrapped. At night the casket was taken out through a secret door and hidden secretly in the cellar of the police prefecture, at the end of a certain passageway. They walled In the casket and eleverly gave the wall an appearance of great age and dilapidation. In. front, of this wall they laid a number of valuable public documents, so that if they should happen to be found their importance would lead the discoverers to think there was nothing else hidden there. In front of the papers they built another wall. Here the Venus of Milo remained, much to the distress of those patriotic Parisians who did npt knofr where she was and supposed that she had been stolen, through the siege of the city by the Germans and through the disorders of the commune. One day the prefecture caught fire and was pretty completely destroy «d The distress of those who knew that the Venus was concealed there can be Imagined, As soon as the fire was extinguished they hastened to the sinking ruins and after some digging found the casket, buried ip heaps of dirt and stones, but uninjured. It is nnderstood that the Venus has gone into hiding again this year, not to reappear until peace is restored and Paris is free from danger of the invader. —Youth’s Companion.