[AOII_LB93]

Firstly, the Louvre is a bit more than just an art gallery. I.M. Pei is American of Chinese descent. The Louvre itself has been around for centuries, first as a fortress, then a palace/royal residence and then finally as a museum. The pyramids were completed at different times as well, not all at once.

Mitterand had many modern things built, not just the pyramids in front of the Louvre, so the "pharaoh complex" is rather unfounded. He had many modern construction projects going on as his legacy to the capital. L'opera Bastille, Grande Arche de la Defense, the Bibliotheque Nationale and more..

"Liberty guiding the people" was painted by Eugene Delacroix and is not exactly "Lady Liberty" but rather Marianne, the symbol of liberty, and a goddess figure in a toga type garment, and she is wearing a French revolutionary's hat(from 1789) on her head. Marianne is also the symbolic image of the republic on French stamps as well as on the now unused Franc coins and for a while was on the 100 franc note with a painting of Delacroix himself. The boy holding the gun on the right is thought to be the inspiration behind Gavroche - never confirmed by Hugo himself-who is a character in les Miserables. Though not depicting the French revolution, it was depicting the revolution of 1830. Currently, thanks to Coldplay's Viva la Vida, people are becoming more familiar with the painting.

The smaller version of the Statue of Liberty is actually at the end of a bridge on the river Seine facing southwest, which was actually a gift to the French by the Americans on the centennial of the French revolution. There are also replicas all over France, in many cities, as well as across the world.

The French revolution came well after ours, 1789-1792, so the French revolutionaries took a lot of their ideas from us, not the other way around. They helped us fight in ours, but they were still under the rule of Louis XVI at the time. Louis sent troops to our aid. There is very little possibility that the declaration of Independance was influenced by the French, their Declaration des droits de l'homme et du cityoen (the declaration of the rights of man and the citizen ) was and fundamental document in the French revolution and was written in 1788.

BTW Parisiennes are females, I think you mean Parisiens or in English, Parisians.