ABSTRACT
As a site where the products of nature, of science, and of the arts were preserved and exhibited, the museum was a central institution of the nineteenth century. In France, in particular, it embodied some of the deepest preoccupations of the revolutionary state: collective reappropriation, the reappropriation of heritage, the birthright of posterityceaselessly debated issues that, taken together, formed one of the leitmotivs of the Revolution.1 If the eighteenth century in France had declared the right of the people to come into full possession of what rightfully belonged to all mankind, the nineteenth century saw the museum as the accomplishment of this idea. The museum was not just an institution, it became a symbol. The extraordinary efflorescence of museums over the course of the century attests to this phenomenon. Not a single city in France, however small, was willing to do without a museum it could call its own. In La Couture-Boussey, for example, the museum consisted of a single case of local relics displayed in the chambers of the town council.
