When the first volume of the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum (CIL) was published in 1863 under the auspices of the Academy of Berlin, the French scientific community suffered a great defeat. The basis of this defeat lie in the fact that the several attempts to publish different collections of Latin inscriptions had all ended up aborting. As early as 1835, these endeavours had provoked a confrontation between Philippe Le Bas and Prosper Mérimée, carrying with them their comities and even the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Furthermore, behind the dispute lay also a debate concerning two conceptions of history and epigraphy, at a time when the political situation would have allowed the growth of a science in need of nutriment. Nevertheless, this battle eventually induced the process for the elaboration of a General Collection of Latin Inscriptions, the CIL which Theodor Mommsen was to achieve thirty years later, though in Berlin.