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So persistent were these raids on the collections of art in Italy that Napoleon is known there to this day as il gran ladrone and the chief duty of the new French officials in Italy, said Lucien Bonaparte, was to supervise the packing of pictures and statues for Paris. No less than 5233 of these works of art were confiscated by the Allies in 1815, and returned to their former owners.
These spoils, which almost choked the Louvre during Napoleon's reign, were reduced by the return, in 1815, of 5233 works of art to their original owners under British supervision, and during the removal of the statues and pictures, ostentatiously effected to the bitter humiliation of the Parisians, British sentinels were stationed along the galleries and British soldiers stood under arms in the quadrangle and the Place du Carrousel to protect the workmen.
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