Assuring the Empire of the Future: The 1798 Fête de la Liberté

Abstract

When the procession of the Fête de la Liberté bearing Napoleon's art loot from Italy crossed Paris on a rainy day in July 1798, its passage was accompanied by a song whose refrain went “Rome is no more in Rome. It is now in Paris”' (Fig. 1). But Rome in fact was two cities, cultural Rome and political Rome. Cultural Rome was the Mecca for young French artists and the homeaway-from-home of the French Academy; it was the destination of young gentlemen on their grand tour and the location of the most esteemed works of art in the Western world—namely, the sculpture of antiquity. But there was a political Rome as well, the historical Rome of Empire, of marching armies and world conquest. Which of these two Romes did the festival honor, and which was now in Paris?

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