Monument à Lafayette
The Marquis de Lafayette is without a doubt, the French hero of the American Revolution. He is a truly legendary figure. I would love to give you his entire storied history but I wouldn’t be able to do it justice (read or listen to Mike Duncan’s work The Marquis de Lafayette: Hero of Two Worlds in the Age of Revolution). Just know he was practically an adopted son of George Washington, he led the French in America, he tried to fix the Kingdom’s finances once back on the Continent, he became head of the French National Guard before the Revolution, he tried to keep the peace during that unGodly time, was almost beheaded by the horrible Jacobins, he attempted to flee to the US but was captured and thrown in a Dutch jail until Napoleon freed him, he visited all 24 American States in 1824, and he was still around to be a figure in the 1830 French Revolution when he declined to become France’s dictator.
Despite all of that, the Marquis de Lafayette did not have a statue or memorial in Paris until 1908… and it was the Americans who erected it. Starting in 1899, a schoolteacher began raising money for a statue for the French hero of the American Revolution but that statue wasn’t completed until 1908. It was displayed in the Louvre until 1984, when it was moved to its current spot above the Port du Champs-Élysées and in front of the Grand Palais.
One funny detail of the awesome statue that most people miss: a little turtle at the base which symbolizes how long it took the American sculptor, Paul Barlett to complete the work.
