Monument à la République

The Monument à la République centers on a colossal bronze statue of Marianne, the personification of the French Republic. She holds an olive branch in one hand and rests the other on a tablet of the rights of man. Sculptor brothers Léopold and Charles Morice won the eighteen seventy-nine competition to build it, beating out seventy-nine other entries. Their design turned the square into a permanent stage for political protest, as crowds gathered here to debate the very values Marianne guards above them.