And there are, and probably always will be, cases in which a body such as the National Trust, constituted largely of representatives of Artistic, Scientific and Learned Societies, and influenced solely by national and aesthetic considerations, is a safer custodian of the place which it is desired to protect than the neighbouring town. Moreover, the existence and work of the Trust act as a stimulus to local and general opinion, and point the way to the systematic assertion by the nation of its interests in its historic memorials, and in the natural features of its land. I believe that at the moment there is no better way of promoting the preservation of Places of Interest and Beauty than to assist and strengthen the National Trust.
Foreign Legislation.
France.
Now let us glance at the state of the law and of public opinion in the two countries of Europe with which our relations are closest, and here I must express my fullest acknowledgements to Professor Baldwin Brown, of Edinburgh, whose exhaustive work on the care of monuments,[1] must be the text-book on the subject for some time to come.
In France, the movement for preserving historic monuments took shape about 1830, stimulated by the reckless destruction of interesting buildings and remains which signalized the Monarchy restored after the downfall of Napoleon. Montalembert, Chateaubriand, Guizot, Victor Hugo are among the great names connected with early stages of the movement and to the first-named we owe the memorable phrase, ‘les longs souvenirs font les grands peuples.’ Guizot, Minister of Instruction in 1830, appointed
- ↑ "The Care of Ancient Monuments." By G. Baldwin Brown, M.A., Watson Gordon Professor of Fine Art in the University of Edinburgh. Cambridge: at the University Press, 1905.
