Heritage Preservation as a Public Duty: The Abbe Gregoire and the Origins of an Idea

Abstract

Public responsibility for the conservation of artifacts of historic or aesthetic value is now acknowledged everywhere. One way or another the state will ensure preservation of a Stonehenge or a Grand Canyon as well as a great many lesser icons. We have names for such things and cultural property are two of them; patrimony is a European counterpart but these words have no very specific meaning. Many, but by no means all, of the objects we feel constrained to protect are old. They include human artifacts as well as natural objects or places. Though it is customary to say that no one has a right to destroy those things comprising our heritage, many such items, especially works of art, are held and enjoyed as ordinary private goods without public access or regulation of any kind. This inconsistency illustrates the paradox of historical preservation. As uncontroversial as heritage preservation may appear when one thinks of historic monuments and artistic masterworks, the idea of an officially designated culture seems greatly at odds with modern sensibilities. The very idea of government involving itself in life raises the unwelcome specter of censorship on one side and official propaganda on the other. In addition, there is the more general question of policy as a tool of a paternalistic state that aspires to make its citizens good, a notion that has lost all cachet in our time. In short, state policies appear to be out of harmony with modern ideas about the role of government. Nonetheless they flourish. Obviously there is some very strong attraction to the idea of a common heritage: a people and a community bound together in some shared enterprise with shared values. How did protection of values come to be viewed as a proper public concern in a modern world centered on the liberty and autonomy of the individual? The pages that follow trace out one historical strand of the story in the hope of casting some light into this