Note 30 — Chapter I

It is known that Napoleon I. entertained the chimerical design of concentrating at Paris the archives of the whole of Europe, and that, for a beginning, he conveyed to that city the archives of the Vatican, the Holy Roman Empire, the crown of Castile, and others, which later on the French were compelled to restore. Confiscation is now out of the question. But the ancient archives of the notaries might be centralised everywhere, as in some countries they are already, in public institutions. It is not easy to explain why at Paris the departments of Foreign Affairs, of War, and of Marine preserve ancient papers whose natural place would be at the Archives Nationales. A great many more anomalies of this kind might be mentioned, which in certain cases impede, where they do not altogether preclude, research; for the small collections, whose existence is not required, are precisely those whose regulations are the most oppressive.