THE SUCCESSIVE STATUES OF PLACE DES VOSGES

FROM A SYMBOL OF TRIUMPHANT MONARCHY TO A WORK 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 

                                                             La Garde nationale par pour l'armée by Leon Cogniet, 1836 / zoom

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

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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. The tree trunk suggests that Cortot 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 (in French)

The statue suggests a "pale monarchy"
for which the king himself 

does not seek the means 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,

 Memories from beyond the grave (« Mémoires d'outre tomb »), 1848

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