Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/149



a permanent insult cast by the victors on the vanquished, a perpetual attack on one of the great principles of the French Republic Fraternity, decrees the column of the Place Vendôme shall be demolished.

This beautiful column took its name from the hotel of Duke Vendôme, the illegitimate son of Henry IV., which formerly stood here. The form of the Place is a perfect octagon, 420 by 450 feet. The buildings bordering on the Place are very beautiful, and of Corinthian architecture. In the centre formerly stood an equestrian statue of Louis XIV; this was demolished by the people during the first revolution, the base only being saved. In 1806, the Emperor Napoleon I. gave orders for the erection of a triumphal monument in honor of the successes of the French armies. The column was of the Tuscan order, and copied after Trajan's Pillar at Rome. Its height was 135 feet; in circumference at the base, 35 feet; the base was 21 feet high and 20 square. The summit was reached by a winding staircase of 176 steps. The column was covered with bas-reliefs in bronze, composed of 276 plates, made out of 1200 pieces of cannon taken from the Russians and Austrians, representing the victories of the French armies in the German campaign of 1805. There were over 2,000 figures of three feet high, and the metal used weighed 1,800,000 pounds. The column was surmounted by a collossal bronze statue of Napoleon I, 11 feet high, in a Roman toga; this was erected by Napoleon III, in 1863, replacing the old familiar statue with the cocked hat and military surtout. The Emperor's statue was hurled to the ground during the revolution of 1814, but France was not satisfied until a finer one was placed upon the summit. The whole cost was about $300,000.

The Commune did not decide the destruction of the national monument without some opposition. A small mi