Affair at the Louvre.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 11, 14 March 1908, Page 11

Affair at the Louvre.

extraordinary affair -has occurred at the Louvre. About a month ago, when the attendant at the Galerie d’Apollon took up his service, he found that a large pane of one of the windows had been cut away with a diamond, and that half of it had fallen on the balcony known as that of Charles IX., outside. The gallery contains a number of costly objects, ineluding Crown jewels, Bernard Palissy’s collection, and other articles which could not possibly be replaced, and great was the worthy man’s trepidation when he made this very unpleasant discovery. How did it happen ? There is an all-night watch in this gallery, and every hour guards made the round of the historical museum. At first it was thought that the offender might have climbed up to the balcony and cut the glass from there. Closer inspection, however, revealed the fact that the mischief had been committed from inside, but by whom? Who could have gone stealthily down the gallery without arousing the attention of the watchman, who has to keep a sharp look-out ? Such was the mystery, which was rendered even more peculiar by the circumstance that not a single article hud been taken away. Nor is the mystery yet cleared up. When the man who keeps guard over the Galerie d’Apollon left oil' in the morning, he being relieved by the attendant, he did not seem to have noticed what had happened, as he did not report it, nor, again, had the chief of the band which goes the round every hour anything to say.