Louis François Sébastien Fauvel spent the best part of thirty years in Athens.
"enlevez tout ce que vous pourrez..., ne negilgez aucune occasion de piller dans Athenes et dans son territoire tout ce qu'il y a de pillable..., n'epargnez ni les morts ni les vivant...," (Biographie de Louis-François-Sébastien Fauvel Antiquaire et Consul (1753-1838), Legrand, Revue Archeologique, 1897)
["Take away all that you can ... do not neglect any opportunity to plunder in Athens and in its territory all that is plunderable ..., spare neither the dead nor the living ..."] - French ambassador Choiseul-Gouffier's instructions to Fauvel, 14 February 1789.
"No one has destroyed more grave mounds than the French painter Fauvel. He has excavated almost all in the vicinity of Athens, Marathon and other areas... The worst thing about it is that Fauvel has not given us the slightest notice about the remarkable items found in these venerable monuments, and that one does not even know what has become of the objects." (J.D. Åkerblad describing Fauvel's activities in a book published in 1800)
