WHEN YOU HAVE NOTHING MORE TO OFFER
someone is ringing
but no one answers
nothing can be bound
nothing can be shaped
nothing can keep you
nothing can stop you
you would go out
and climb the statue in the central square
and speak to people
– what can you tell them
what else can you tell them? –
towards evening, calm,
you lose yourself in the crowd
you do not walk, you just slide
you let yourself be pushed, shoved aside
you do not care for anything anymore
anyway,
before it had time to unfold
your life was gone
the curtain! the curtain!
The Statue of Republic [Marianne] on the Place de la République, Paris -- Léopold Morice [11 Jan 2016]
After terrorist attacks in Paris in January 2015, 1.6 million people gathered in the Place de la République (the largest demonstration in modern French history) to mourn the victims and express national solidarity. The 3.4 hhectare (8.4 acre) square is on the border between the 3rd, 10th and 11th arrondissements. At its center is a 9.4 m (31 ft) bronze statue of Marianne, the personification of the French Republican, holding an olive branch in her right hand and resting her left hand on a tablet engraved with the "Droits de l'homme" (The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, passed by the National Constituent Assembly in 1789, which was introduced by Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, who wrote it in collboaration with the American minsiter to France, Thomas Jefferson). She is surrounded by three statues personifying Liberté, Égalité, and Fraternité. The statue sits atop a 23 m (75 ft) monument, built in honor of the 90th anniversary of the French Revolution. The architectural segments were executed by François-Charles Morice, and his brother Léopold did the sculptural segments. A gypsum model was celebrated on 14 July 1880 and the final bronze version three years later. In 1775, Jean-Michel Moreau painted the "goddess of liberty" as a young woman dressed in Roman-style clothing, with a Phrygian cap atop a pike held in one hand, which the National Convention decreed would represent the new republic on the state seal in 1792. The former kingdom had been embodied in masculine figures, such as on some ceilings in the Palace of Versailles. Furthermore, France, the Republic, Liberty, and Reason are all feminine nouns (la France, la République, Liberté, and Raison). Marianne had already been featured on a medal in 1789, celebrating the storming of the Bastille on 14 July and other early events of the Revolution, but was less important than other allegorical figures such as Mercury and Minerva. The first written mention of "Marianne" to designate the Republic appeared in 1792 in a song by Guillaume Lavabre, written in the Provençal dialect of Occita : "La garisou de Marianno" (Marianne's recovery [from illness]). The moderate liberal Girondins who dominated the government in 1792, however, were ousted by the radical Jacobins in 1793, and Marianne became a fierce, bare-breasted warrior. After the Reign of Terror, Marianne was reimagined to showcase the Directoire's less violent nature; though still depicted with the Phrygian cap, she no longer held a pike or lance and leaned lazily against the new constitution. After Napoleon Bonaparte dissolved the Directoire in 1799, her image continued to evolve to meet the ever-changing needs of new governing ideologies. After the 1848 revolution, Marianne was condensed for the first time as a representation of Liberty, the Republic, and the Revolution. Two "Mariannes" were authorised, one with a bare breast, Phrygian cap, a red corsage, and an arm lifted in a gesture of rebellion, the other in classical dress with sun rays around her head (resembling the Statue of Liberty that the French gave the US 30 years later). The common use of the name "Marianne" as a depiction of "Liberty" started around 1848/1851 and became generalised throughout France around 1875. During the Second Empire (1852–1870), this depiction became clandestine and served as a symbol of protest against the new Napoleonic regime. The usage began to be more official during the Third Republic (1870–1940). The Morice statue had an uplifted arm and a Phrygian cap, but her breasts are covered.
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