The most well known was of course the royal (and the ari­sto­crat­ic) col­lec­tions, as they usual­ly had far greater means at their disposal; but, because these col­lec­tions were organised under the same principles as those in pri­va­te col­lec­tions, they were essentially seen as pri­va­te col­lec­tions, a condition that held, on the whole, up until the practice and ideology of the French Revolution, when the status of the Louvre radically altered from being a monarch’s pri­va­te gallery to the public gallery of the Republic (the Louvre was opened in 1793), which, being totally incorporated with­in the thinking of En­lighten­ment, thereby became a beacon to all other nations of that time, whether republican or not.