archaeology in the society led to the change of its name to the Society of
Antiquaries of France (Socie ́te ́des antiquaires de France) in 1814, publishing
itsMe ́moiresfrom 1817, setting the example for many other academies
founded throughout France from 1824 (Belmont 1995; Pomian 1996: 29).
Except for these minor incursions into the prehistoric period, the Museum
of French Monuments mostly focused on the medieval and post-medieval
past, from the thirteenth century onwards (McClelland 1994: 178, 187). In
spite of being deprecated by the revolutionary leaders and not being Lenoir’s
favourite part of the exhibition (McClelland 1994: 181), it was the medieval
section speciWcally which most attracted the public (Haskell 1993: 249) and
eventually became key in the new archaeological studies. Painters, sculptors,
architects and decorators visited the museum to look for models (ibid.249).
The medieval section, however, received a major blow in 1795, when the
decision was taken to transform the Louvre into the only true museum of
French sculpture, which meant the forced transfer of most of the exhibits of
this period from one museum to the other (McClelland 1994: 169).
The task of organizing the physical remains of the Middle Ages—especially
those of buildings—had, in fact, a history of scholarly research which went
back to the previous century (see for example the English case (Frew 1980 and
Miele 1998: 112). In eighteenth-century France authors such as Montesquieu
had already pointed to the Frankish origins of the nation (Hannaford 1996:
201). An early example of the teaching of medieval archaeology which
emphasized the historical value of monuments to national archaeology can
be found in Aubin-Louis Millin’s (1759–1818) course on ‘Roman and medi-
eval monumental archaeology’Wrst taught in 1795 (Gran-Aymerich 1998:
37–8). The narrative behind the exhibition of the Museum of French Monu-
ments had been inspired by Winckelmann’sHistory of the Art of Antiquity.
A chronological arrangement of objects established a progression of French
art from the primitiveness of the medieval period to the Renaissance. Lenoir’s
national narrative painted an ascendant development of French arts that had
only been blocked by absolutism (the form of government where the monarch
had all power to rule, with nothing to limit his rule) in the seventeenth
century, an obstacle that the revolution and its institutions had overcome
(Haskell 1993: 242; McClelland 1994: 181, 190, 193). SigniWcantly, Greek
art—the focus of Winckelmann’s dissertation—had been substituted by the
arts of the French nation, something diYcult to imagine occurring a few
decades earlier. Lenoir argued that this art embodied the values and politics of
the age when it had been created (McClelland 1994: 167). The exhibition was
perceived by most as an evocation of national history, as the ideal museum,
the sort of nationalist museum which would become the norm later in
the century. As the historian Michelet stated years later, ‘for theWrst time
The Early Search (1789–1820) 321