Wednesday, 27 November, shortly before 9 p.m., a significant leak of dirty water occurred in the library of the department of Egyptian antiquities, causing a flood. Around 400 volumes were damaged, notably their old bindings, some of which are now beyond repair. The offices also suffered and are temporarily unusable. The force of the gushing water was such that, not content with soaking the carpet, it seeped down to the floor below, reaching an electrical cabinet, which could have caused a fire. Last Tuesday, a new, less significant leak occurred in the same place.
All this could appear as an inevitable incident, as sometimes happens in this type of building. Except that this one was not a surprise: for years, the department has been requesting from Francis Steinbock [1], the deputy general administrator, funds to protect these books from a potential rupture of the pipes running through the false ceilings, whose state of dilapidation is well known to the services, regularly causing less serious leaks. The assistance of an external contractor, necessary to move these collections into a vacant and better-secured space, as was done for the relocation of the library of the department of Byzantine and Eastern Christian antiquities, was also not granted.
Another request, that of purchasing furniture specially designed to house works as precious as the Description de l’Égypte or Denkmäler aus Ägypten und Äthiopien by Karl Richard Lepsius, is equally regularly refused. Fortunately, these books were not affected by the flood. Yet, placed under windows and protected only by bubble wrap, they remain at the mercy of a violent storm, which is known to be capable of causing severe damage.
This library being located in the pavillon Mollien, accessible via the cour Lefuel, in the Denon wing, one cannot help but compare the absence of these essential works with those carried out in the offices of the general management – which is nearby – and which were described in the Court of Auditors’ report (see the article). They cost €276,000, mostly in designer furniture [2]. The comfort of the president-director of the Louvre, her general administrator, and a few other members of the general management is evidently considered more important than the safety of a scientific library containing rare and highly valuable works, essential tools for the curators.
Moreover, we are only talking about budgets of a few thousand euros to protect the books, even if all this would obviously be only a stopgap: the urgent matter is to repair this faulty piping system, whose malfunction could have had far worse consequences.
Safety – which Laurence des Cars claims to have made a priority – evidently does not extend this far. Faced with the “investment wall” looming, according to the words of the Court of Auditors, for the “Louvre Colonnade” project, there are no small savings on the essentials for the life of a museum. The priority is clearly to have a new grand entrance and large exhibition halls (in a flood-prone area, obviously, otherwise it would not be fun).
This disaster is merely an additional illustration of the Louvre’s drift, neglecting its missions to pursue a chimera. The theft of the Crown Jewels, the closure of the Campana gallery and the offices above it, the flooding of the library of the department of Egyptian antiquities… all this again demonstrates that the museum should focus on the restoration and maintenance of the palace. And that its current management no longer has a place there.