In 1957 took place in Paris at the "Musée des Arts Décoratifs" the "exhibition of the collections of the oldest provincial museum," Besançon. The Museum of Besançon is dear to the heart of all the people from Franche-Comté who participated to this exhibition: Marie-Lucie Cornillot , the curator of the museum , Jean Vergnet -Ruiz , Inspector General of provincial museums and François Mathey , assistant curator at the "Musée des Arts Décoratifs". He had worked the diocesan commission of sacred art in Besançon with Ms. Cornillot. This exhibition at the Pavillon de Marsan in the Louvre had not been planned. It is the result of international political circumstances which have marked 1956 (the intervention of Soviet tanks in Budapest) and the willing of the curators, who took the opportunity to support their museums. This moment in history illustrates the practical consequences of the Cold War on the lives of the French museums, ready, with Rose Valland's help, to put away their permanent collections in times of tensions or international threats.
