Gregory Curtis Read Online Free Page A

cowshed to see the new discovery. The captains advised Brest to buy it, although that was probably not what he was hoping to hear. A negative opinion would have helped him justify not risking his money.
    The next day, April 10, two other French vessels, the
Bonite
and the
Emulation
, arrived at Melos. Brest took their commanders to the cowshed immediately. On April 11,Captain Dauriac of the
Bonite
wrote a letter toPierre David in Smyrna, the French consul general in the Levant who was Brest’s superior. This letter is the first written description of the Venus de Milo after its discovery:
    Three days ago a peasant who was digging in his field found a white marble statue representing Venus receiving the apple of Paris. She is larger than life-size. At the moment we have only the bust down to the waist. I have been to see her. The head appears well conserved to me as well as the hair. The end of one of the breasts is broken. The peasant was told that the discovery that hemade was of great value and he believes it now because there are people who have already offered him one thousand piasters. M. Brest … asked me for advice about the statue, but I am not able to give him any, not knowing anything about the subject.
    The next day, April 12, Brest himself wrote a letter to David to alert him to the discovery. He said that the statue was “a little mutilated; the arms are broken off and she is separated in two pieces at the waist.” He describes the work as “Venus holding the apple of discord in her hand.”
    Both men seem to be referring to the hand holding an apple that was among the bits and pieces Yorgos found in the niche with the statue and put with the rest of the fragments in the cowshed. Its marble and dimensions were consistent with the statue’s. And, as both Dauriac and Brest seem to have known, Greek statues of Venus often showed her holding an apple. The apple is the central symbol in the myth of how theTrojan War began. When the mortal Peleus and the goddess Thetis were married, the only goddess who wasn’t invited was Discord. For revenge she threw a golden apple with the inscription “For the fairest” among the guests. Juno, Venus, and Minerva each claimed that the apple was meant for her. Jupiter saw nothing but trouble for himself if he chose any one of the three above the others, so he sent the goddesses to Mount Ida, where Paris, the most beautiful mortal man, was tending flocks of sheep. Each goddess appeared before him and tried to bribe him to choose her. Juno promised power and wealth. Minerva promised triumph in war. But Venus promised the most beautiful woman on earth for his wife. That decided Paris. He chose Venus and gave her the apple. The most beautiful woman on earth turned out to be Helen, the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. Venus helped Paris persuade Helen to leave with him for Troy. The Greeks united to bring Helen back, and the Trojan War began.
The ambitious ensign
    A LONG with Voutier’s sketches, Dauriac’s letter, and Brest’s letter, there is a fourth description of the statue from the days that followed its discovery. Its author, an ensign in the French navy who was just a month shy of his thirtieth birthday, had arrived on April 16 aboard a ship named the
Chevrette
. During the next ten years he would emerge from obscurity to become one of the most famous men in Europe. His rise began inMelos when he appropriated for himself the credit for discovering the Venus de Milo.
    This ensign was the driven, indomitable, and peculiar Jules Sébastien-César Dumont d’Urville. Although he languished through his twenties as a junior officer without connections, he eventually became a rear admiral. He led three voyages around the world, during which he explored the coasts of Australia, New Zealand, and New Guinea as well as many islands in Polynesia. He established the first French presence in Antarctica. His accounts of these voyages became publishing sensations and were