THE GREAT PLUNDER

Historical novel in four volumes

Robert Casanovas

VOLUME I — THE BIRTH OF THE SYSTEM

1794–1798

Flanders and Italy — Preparations for the Egyptian Campaign

COMPLETE SUMMARY

Preliminary Note

This novel is a work of historical fiction grounded in authentic research. All the artworks mentioned were genuinely seized during the French conquests between 1794 and 1813. Most of the characters existed; the sequence of events traces verified facts. For narrative purposes, certain scenes and dialogues have been imagined.

Prologue

Paris, June 1794

In the dimly lit chamber of the Committee of Public Instruction, Abbé Grégoire signs a report that will set everything in motion. The Austrian Netherlands have just fallen, delivering to the Republic territories teeming with artworks without equal in Europe. The question Grégoire poses is simple in its brutality: what is to be done with these riches? His answer is a new idea — an organised transfer, legitimised by the republican ideal. Paris deserves to be the capital of the arts. It can become so through deeds.

This document — a simple recommendation among hundreds — will not go unheeded. Grégoire knows it as he blows out the last candle. He knows the commission's appetite. He knows the logic of conquest.

Chapter I — The Flemish Seizures (1794)

This opening chapter establishes the moral and operational framework of the novel. A commission of seven men — Grégoire, Lebrun, David, Hassenfratz, Thouin, Faujas and Levesque — is formed to organise the artistic seizures in Belgium. From the very first meetings, tensions emerge: David, the revolutionary painter, pushes for a logic of triumphant conquest; Grégoire attempts to impose ethical safeguards; Lebrun, an expert in the art market, assesses the situation with the cold lucidity of someone who understands exactly what is being undone.

Ghent: the Tearing Away of Van Eyck

At the Cathedral of Saint Bavo in Ghent, the commission sets its sights on the Ghent Altarpiece by the Van Eyck brothers (1432), the supreme masterpiece of Flemish painting. The operation unfolds before the eyes of Canon De Vos, a weeping old man whom David has arrested for “obstructing a republican mission.” Grégoire, ashen-faced, does not intervene forcefully enough. This silence will become his torment.

Thouin oversees the dismantling of the three central panels of the upper register with a meticulousness that keeps David in check, though it cannot prevent an accident: one panel falls some sixty centimetres and cracks along the back. The people of Ghent, gathered before the cathedral, weep in silence as the convoy departs. Chalk inscriptions appear on the façades: “Republican France plunders just as monarchical Austria does.”

Antwerp: the Dismembered Rubens

Simultaneously, Lebrun is operating in Antwerp. Rubens's Descent from the Cross and Elevation of the Cross — monumental triptychs several metres in height — are cut into sections to make them transportable. The chapter's dean, Monsignor Van der Noot, accuses Lebrun of “barbarism” and theft. Lebrun responds with a professional coldness that conceals a growing unease. His personal notebooks, in which he records his doubts, constitute one of the most intense narrative threads of the chapter.

Brussels: Van Reyn and the Documentary Record

In Brussels, Hassenfratz and Levesque operate at the Coudenberg Palace with the assistance of Commissioner Pottier. There they encounter Van Reyn, the keeper of the ducal collections: a small, thin man whose hands remain absolutely still, who never protests but documents everything with methodical persistence. Each seizure is recorded in a receipt made out in triplicate and sent to confidential recipients. “You have taken everything, but everything is written down” — this phrase embodies the silent resistance of those who know that balances of power eventually reverse.

The Mechelen episode rounds out the chapter: Abbé Huysmans surrenders without a fight a Christ on the Cross by Van Dyck, a painting of striking austerity over which Lebrun lingers, taking the measure of what he is carrying away. The conversation between the two men about future restitution is one of the most beautiful scenes in the novel.

The Return Convoy and Thermidor

The convoy of nineteen wagons, escorted by forty soldiers, makes its way towards Paris from Valenciennes. Incidents accumulate: broken wheels, storms, bridges too narrow, an attempted nocturnal theft at Jemappes. Hassenfratz supervises everything with his measurement notebook, reducing each day to calculable data. David, for his part, has abruptly left the convoy at Ath: Thermidor has fallen, Robespierre is dead, David is compromised.

At Compiègne, a letter from Lakanal confirms that the mission is retrospectively validated. But Grégoire grasps the fragility of this legitimacy. Back in Paris, he will draft an honest report on the Flemish operations — a report that David, freed from the Luxembourg prison after fifty-six days, will read with lucid irony: “The deeds are done. The paintings are in Paris. Your report will change nothing.”

Grégoire will make a solitary nocturnal visit to the Museum to contemplate alone, by the light of a dying lantern, the Van Eyck panels, the Rubens from Antwerp, the Van Dyck from Mechelen. This silent vigil, on the Day of the Dead, is one of the most poignant moments in the novel.

Chapter II — The Rush on Italy (1796)

The chapter opens with the preparation of the artistic commission for the Italian campaign. Lebrun, in his small room at the Museum, has been accumulating for months lists of Italian collections — Parma, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Rome — with a “Feasibility” column distinguishing what cannot be transported (frescoes, entire chapels) from what can. Denon, who spent three years in Italy, is recruited for his knowledge of the terrain. Grégoire manages to take part despite his misgivings.

Bonaparte and the Italian Campaign

Bonaparte's arrival at the head of the Army of Italy (March 1796) changes the entire balance of power. The novel devotes a remarkable sequence to him: his assumption of command in Nice, his nocturnal study of the maps, his meeting with Generals Augereau, Masséna, Sérurier and La Harpe. In eighteen days and a series of lightning manoeuvres — Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, Mondovì — he separates the Austrian and Piedmontese armies, compels Victor Amadeus III to the Armistice of Cherasco (28 April 1796), and opens the road to Milan.

The Battle of Lodi Bridge (10 May 1796) gives rise to a scene of great intensity: six hundred grenadiers under Austrian fire cross the two hundred and thirty metres of the stone bridge; two hundred fall. Bonaparte, who lingers on the bridge after the battle among the dead, articulates the thought that has haunted him since Auxonne: “War is confused and brutal, and yet something greater than the confusion occurs within it all the same.”

Milan: the Inventories

On 15 May, Bonaparte enters Milan. The novel describes the immediate organisation of the occupation: fifteen million in war contributions, requisition of provisions, a military administration set up within forty-eight hours. But above all: the artworks. Bonaparte dictates a letter to the Directory: “We shall soon have everything of beauty that Italy possesses.” This is not a promise — it is a programme.

The commission convenes at the Serbelloni Palace before Bonaparte. The general sets a deadline of fifteen days before resuming the campaign. Hassenfratz calculates, Thouin organises the packing, Denon anticipates the resistance. The Ambrosiana is the priority target: Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus (twelve volumes, more than a thousand folios of notes and drawings), the Bruegels, the series of Elements. Then come the collections of the ducal palaces, the manuscripts from the libraries, the antique pieces from the Brera. Bonaparte sets the priorities with the precision of a general staff, in political and symbolic terms as much as artistic ones.

The campaign continues: Parma, Modena, Bologna and Ferrara are visited in succession. At each stage, the commissioners negotiate artistic treaties, extract what can be transported, and document what cannot. Correggio's frescoes in Parma — untransportable — give rise to a moral debate between Grégoire and Denon about the limits of the plunder.

Chapter III — Rome and Venice (1797)

The most complex chapter of the volume confronts the commissioners with realities that surpass anything they have encountered in Flanders or Lombardy. Rome is the accumulation of two millennia. The Vatican holds the Apollo Belvedere, the Laocoön, the Raphael Rooms, the Sistine Chapel. Grégoire said it from the outset: “If we go as far as Rome, it will be nothing at all like Flanders.”

The Treaty of Tolentino (February 1797) imposes humiliating artistic conditions on Pope Pius VI: one hundred paintings, sculptures, vases and statues of the French commissioners' choosing, along with five hundred manuscripts. The selection becomes a vertiginous exercise: the Apollo Belvedere and the Laocoön will leave Rome for Paris. But the Sistine Chapel remains — one cannot transport a chapel. Raphael remains. Michelangelo remains. Paris will never have it all.

Venice offers another form of wrenching loss. After the fall of the Most Serene Republic (May 1797) and the Treaty of Campo Formio, the bronze horses of Saint Mark's — millennial symbols of the city — depart for Paris. The episode is recounted with rare emotional precision: the Venetians watch their horses being lowered from the façade of their basilica as one watches something irreplaceable die.

The chapter closes on the questionings of Grégoire and Lebrun. Grégoire writes, as ever. Lebrun is already preparing the next lists. The plunder has its own logic: it does not stop of its own accord.

Chapter IV — The Egyptian Project (1796–1798)

The final chapter opens the perspective towards Volume II by recounting the genesis and preparation of the Egyptian expedition. Bonaparte, returning from Italy wreathed in glory, conceives a project that goes beyond military war: to subjugate Egypt, sever the British route to India, and simultaneously launch the greatest scientific and cultural operation in modern history.

The Commission of Sciences and Arts

One hundred and sixty-seven scholars, artists and engineers are recruited to accompany the army: geographers, chemists, botanists, draughtsmen, astronomers, physicians. Among them: Monge, Berthollet, Fourier, Jomard, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, and Vivant Denon — who will be the great eye and great hand of the cultural mission. The stated objective is scientific: to measure, inventory and understand ancient and modern Egypt. The implicit objective is the same as in Flanders and Italy: to bring back to Paris whatever can be taken.

The Army and the Fleet at Toulon

The novel describes the extraordinary concentration at Toulon: three hundred and forty-seven ships, forty thousand two hundred men embarked, crates of scientific equipment stacked in the holds between the cannon and the provisions. Everything must be ready before Nelson — whose fleet is cruising the Mediterranean — can divine the expedition's true destination.

The generals' meeting at the Bishop's Palace is one of the great scenes of the chapter. Bonaparte sets out his strategy with the clarity of a man who has calculated every variable. Kléber asks the only question that matters: “Why Malta before Egypt?” Bonaparte's answer weaves together geopolitics, financial resources and the logic of the staging post.

The Night of Departure

The final scene is of a sober and memorable beauty. Bonaparte goes up to the deck of the Orient at dawn on 19 May 1798. The departure order was to be given at 7 o'clock. At 7 o'clock, Bonaparte says nothing. Casabianca waits, perplexed. Then Bonaparte tells his captain that he needs one last moment — to look at Toulon, to think of Alexander the Great who left Macedonia at twenty to conquer the East.

When he finally gives the order — “Captain Casabianca, you may raise the sails. We depart for Egypt” — three hundred and forty-seven ships set in motion in the light of the Mediterranean morning. In the holds, between sleeping soldiers and crates of equipment, scholars hold their notebooks at the ready. The plunder begins again.

Gallery of Principal Characters

Abbé Grégoire

A member of the Convention and defender of regional languages, he is the moral conscience of the novel. He knows that what he is doing is morally ambiguous; yet he does not withdraw, because he believes his presence can limit the excesses. His honest report on the Flemish mission — written against David and against himself — is a rare act of probity. His nocturnal visit to the Museum, lantern in hand, is the key scene of his arc.

Lebrun, the Art Dealer

An expert in Flemish collections, he knows better than anyone what is being undone. His personal notebooks — in which he records his doubts alongside technical measurements — constitute the most intimate thread of the novel. It is he who prepares the Italian lists with methodical care, knowing they will serve to empty other cities.

Hassenfratz, the Engineer

Chemist and engineer, he reduces the world to measurements: the weight of crates, the dimensions of bridges, the load capacity of wagons. His dryness is not indifference — it is a way of keeping the world at a safe distance. When he tells Grégoire “this is the progress available to us,” one hears the resignation of a clear-sighted man.

David, the Revolutionary Painter

A member of the Committee of General Security, he is the ideological driving force of the commission: he sincerely believes that Paris deserves the world's masterpieces and that bringing them here is an act of civilisation. His arrest after Thermidor removes him from the scene, but his logic — deeds count more than words — continues to weigh upon all the others.

Van Reyn, the Brussels Curator

A memorable figure in the novel: he does not protest — he documents. His sixty-eight pages of parallel inventory, sent in triplicate to confidential recipients, embody a form of resistance that the commissioners can neither forbid nor ignore. “You have taken everything, but everything is written down” — this phrase runs through the entire novel.

Vivant Denon

Diplomat, draughtsman, man of taste, he knows Italy from the inside, having spent three years there. He will be the linchpin of the Italian commission and the great witness of the Egyptian expedition. His elegant pragmatism stands in contrast to Grégoire's idealism and Hassenfratz's calculations.

Napoléon Bonaparte

He enters in Chapter II and gradually monopolises the narrative. The novel depicts him with clinical precision: the cold efficiency of the strategist, the inner certainty that impresses without seeking to persuade, and the acute awareness — as early as 1796 — that artworks are an instrument of power as important as military victories.

Themes and Issues of Volume I

The Legitimisation of Plunder. The entire novel revolves around the question: how does an act of spoliation assume the appearance of an act of civilisation? The commissioners are not brutes — they are cultivated men who sincerely believe, for the most part, that Paris deserves these works. This is precisely what makes the plunder more effective and more difficult to condemn.

Resistance through Documentation. Van Reyn, Grégoire, the canons of Ghent and Mechelen: all oppose the plunder not with violence but with documentation, reports, and registers. This is a form of resistance that cannot win in the immediate term but prepares the way for future restitution.

Systemic Logic. The title of the volume — “The Birth of the System” — says it all: what is put in place between 1794 and 1798 is not a series of isolated acts but an organised, institutionalised mechanism that will outlast the Revolution, the Directory, and Thermidor. The system does not depend on the survival of its founders.

Beauty as Absolution. David states it with lucid brutality: “Beauty makes one forget history.” The visitors to the Museum will see the paintings, not the tears of the people of Ghent. It is perhaps the darkest sentence in the novel.

Chronology of Volume I

June 1794 — Abbé Grégoire signs the founding report in Paris.

August 1794 — Operations in Flanders: Ghent (Van Eyck), Antwerp (Rubens), Brussels, Mechelen (Van Dyck).

Late August 1794 — The convoy of 19 wagons makes its way towards Paris from Valenciennes.

27 July 1794 — Thermidor — fall of Robespierre. David is arrested; the commission reconstitutes itself.

Autumn 1794 — Arrival of the Flemish works at the Museum. Grégoire drafts his report.

December 1794 — David released from the Luxembourg prison.

1795 — Lebrun prepares the Italian lists in his room at the Museum. Lakanal organises the commission.

27 March 1796 — Bonaparte takes command of the Army of Italy at Nice.

10–28 April 1796 — Lightning campaign: Montenotte, Millesimo, Dego, Mondovì. Armistice of Cherasco with Piedmont.

10 May 1796 — Battle of the Lodi Bridge.

15 May 1796 — Bonaparte enters Milan. The artistic commission sets up at the Serbelloni Palace.

May–June 1796 — Inventories and seizures in Milan (Codex Atlanticus), Parma, Modena, Bologna, Ferrara.

February 1797 — Treaty of Tolentino with the Pope: 100 major works including the Apollo and the Laocoön leave Rome.

May 1797 — Fall of the Republic of Venice. The bronze horses of Saint Mark’s depart for Paris.

October 1797 — Treaty of Campo Formio — end of the first Italian campaign.

Winter 1797–1798 — Recruitment of the Commission of Sciences and Arts for Egypt (167 scholars).

19 May 1798 — Departure from Toulon: 347 ships, 40,200 men. The fleet weighs anchor for Egypt. End of Volume I.

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