Monument to Maréchal Moncey

The monument in the center of the square honors Marshal Bon-Adrien Jeannot de Moncey for his command during the final days of the Napoleonic Empire. On March 30, 1814, as coalition forces closed in on the city, Moncey organized a desperate defense at the barrier of Clichy. He led a ragtag group of roughly 15,000 volunteers, including young students from the École Polytechnique and the veterinary school, to hold back the advancing Russian troops. While the city eventually fell, this stand at the northern gate became a celebrated symbol of Parisian resistance. The bronze statue you see now stands fourteen meters tall atop a stone pedestal. It depicts the Marshal standing alongside an allegorical figure representing the City of Paris, which serves to dramatize his role as the city's protector. The monument is the work of sculptor Amédée Doublemard and architect Edmond Guillaume, and it was inaugurated in 1869. The design process for this memorial was far more contentious than the final, academic sculpture suggests. The city held a competition in 1864, and the famous sculptor Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux submitted a much more radical, avant-garde design. Carpeaux envisioned the Marshal on a rearing horse, rising above a chaotic, piled-up mass of struggling bodies. The city commission ultimately rejected this visceral vision in favor of the more traditional and restrained statue that stands before you today. If you look closely at the stone pedestal, you will see three bas-reliefs that were added in 1870 to provide more historical context to the scene. One of these, titled The Combat of the Barrier of Clichy, is based on a famous 1820 painting by Horace Vernet that immortalized the battle. The other reliefs represent the Patrie in mourning and the spirit of patriotism. The monument was originally planned to include four additional statues of various defenders—an officer, a worker, a national guard member, and an invalid—at the corners of the base, but they were cut from the final project for budgetary reasons.