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ANTIQ UE STA TUES. I49
lived in the neighborhood, and at once received news of
the discovery.
The collection of antiques at the Louvre, which Bona-
parte augmented with the most precious booty from con-
quered lands, especially from Italy, had been forced, by
a change in the fortunes of war, to return much of its ac-
cumulated treasure. With grief had many Frenchmen
seen these proud spoils go back the way they came.
But so much the more those concerned felt themselves
called upon to fill, by purchases, the gaps that had arisen.
Everywhere where discovery of antique works could be
expected, the emissaries of France to foreign countries
had been charged to forestall, if possible, other pur-
chasers.
Mr. Brest thus had for this event, a duty prescribed
him, and did not delay a moment the beginning of nego-
tiations for the purchase. He knew that he had danger-
ous rivals—not Englishmen only, who on such occasions
are always at the front, but also the art-loving crown
prince of Bavaria, who stopped at no sacrifice, to aug-
ment his collections, and had recently bought the old
marble amphitheatre, in the neighborhood of Castro.
But what worth might the statue discovered have.’* Mr.
Brest thought, to be sure, that this was a stately woman,
and though the tip of her nose was injured, he deemed
her features beautiful ; but a judge of art, he was not,
and the Greek peasant was not to be satisfied with a low
price. In the harbor below Castro, lay two French men-
of-war. La Liojine and l" Estafette. There might be art
judges among the officers on board. Mr. Brest begged
to hear their opinion. They marched up to Jorgos’s
garden, took the statue under consideration and with one
voice declared that the Louvre ought not to lose that
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