4.2.3. THE SUCCESSIVE STATUES OF PLACE ROYALE (PLACE DES VOSGES)

FROM A SYMBOL OF TRIUMPHANT MONARCHY TO AN EFFIGY THAT A TREE TRUNK HOLDS UP   

A statue finally appeared 30 years after the place was built. 

(In 1643) 

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It was a statue of Louis XIII and was Prime Minister Richelieu's last gift to him.

• Made of bronze, it was melted down for cannons during the Revolution as were the statues of the four other places (in August 1792):

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 Place des Victoires 

                                                             The National Guard leaves for the Army by Leon Cogniet, 1836 / zoom 

The revolutionary tricolor on the site of the pont Neuf statue (in September 1792).

The extended arm of the Louix XV's statue  on place de la Concorde was the only part that stays intact when the statue is torn down. It was given to a Bastille prisoner whom that king had imprisoned. 

-- Quatrevingt-treize ("Ninety-three") by Victor Hugo, ed.1979, p. 153.

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The copy we see was made during the Restoration:* A tree trunk keeps the horse from falling over.

*A constitutional monarchy that nobles dominate (in 1815-30)

Louis XIII by Jean-Pierre Cortot, 1824

The challenge of equestrian statues: The horse must raise a hoof and not fall down.

•  Jean-Pierre Cortot's works are conventional but competent. This one adorns the Arc de Triomphe:

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• The regime had spent most of its budget on the statue for pont Neuf, and Cortot was obliged to use stone instead of bronze. The heavier weight made the work more difficult (a work in bronze is made from a mold whose inside is empty).  

• A government that offered only "masses and masked balls" (George Sand) to a public used to immense victories or massive defeats, soon seemed boring. Cortot must have shared the public's indifference.

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Louis XVIII said of his relationship with the French, "I am like a woman who is not very attractive, whom reason forces one to love."

-- Madame Royale by André Castelot, 1962

The statue suggests a "pale monarchy"
for which the king does not try

for a satisfactory image,

while the vigor of the original work

expresses the start of monarchy's Golden Age.

-- "Pale monarchy:"

  René Chateaubriand, royalist writer,

 « Mémoires d'outre tomb », 1848

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Next,
 4.2.4.

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