10 августа 1793 года Лувр стал музеем

No sooner had Louis XVI's head come off the guillotine than they opened a “Main Art Museum" in the Wolf's Lair. And this is not a harsh political assessment, but a fact: “The Wolf's Lair" – in Old French - “Louvre.” The palace of the French kings dates back to the XII century, later monarchs loved to collect paintings and sculptures there. The French Revolution killed the king, but preserved the palace-museum. Three days of the 10-day revolutionary week it could be visited by the masses, after the museum was being cleaned for two days, and for another five days young people learned to paint. The Louvre owes its present wealth to Napoleon's policy of conquest, who collected tribute from all the conquered nations. Among the 35,000 exhibits, the general public distinguishes the main three, for which the Louvre is aptly nicknamed “the museum of three women.” Tick off your fingers now: the Gioconda, the Venus of Milos and the Nica of Samothrace.