Glory Pulling Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle Adam From His Eternal Sleep

You are standing near the Musée Carnavalet, which houses a sculptural model titled Glory Pulling Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle Adam From His Eternal Sleep. This work, created by the sculptor Frédéric Brou in nineteen-hundred and six, represents a failed ambition to erect a grand, public monument to the nineteenth-century French symbolist writer. The sculpture portrays a nude figure of Glory attempting to tear open the wooden planks of a coffin to reveal the writer inside. The design sparked intense debate among the committee of literary figures tasked with honoring him, as many critics found the imagery of a woman ripping apart a coffin both vulgar and blasphemous. One contemporary writer famously remarked that the piece made the writer look as though he were simply reappearing on the most ungrateful of planets. While the intended full-scale monument was never realized, these surviving models remain as a testament to the controversial and often eccentric legacy of a man who lived his life in poverty despite his noble lineage and significant influence on the birth of French symbolism.