Mark Twain called the Lion Monument “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.” And while it is not the only moving piece of sculpture I’ve seen, [The Pietà comes to my mind.], the lion’s face conveys unquenchable grief and despair. But for what? The loss of Swiss Guards at the Tuileries Palace in 1792? The fact that the statue’s sponsor Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen was in Lucerne on leave at the time and not with his martial brothers?

Is it the loss of the French Monarchy that was restored in 1815? Is it survivors’ guilt? There is no doubt the monument was meant to honor the fallen Swiss Guards, but it seems as if it should be something more than the remnant of a lost battle.

When his brothers fell in 1792, Pfyffer was not there. When his uncle died in the battle, Pfyffer was safe in Lucerne. French Revolutionaries executed Louis XVI in 1793 while Pfyffer and other surviving Swiss Guards returned to duty fighting for different kings. In 1801, a year before Napoleon made himself First Consul for Life, Pfyffer’s regiment disbanded, and the disillusioned soldier went home to Lucerne.

In honor of his fallen comrades, Pfyffer began to transform his family’s sandstone quarry into an English Garden. He surrounded the remaining cliff face with a pool of water, and began to imagine a monument carved out of the rock.

In 1815 Napoleon suffered his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, and the Congress of Vienna redrew the map of Europe once again. Louis XVIII became the restored King of France. Switzerland gained formal recognition as an independent confederation of states.

Two years later, the Swiss Federal Diet compiled a list of fallen and surviving Swiss Guards who had taken part in battles involving France. The Diet awarded the 389 surviving Swiss Guards a commemorative medal engaved Treue Und Ehre — Loyalty & Honor.

Pfyffer seized the moment to envision a monument to his fallen comrades. He published “An account of the bearing of the regiment of Swiss Guards on August 10, 1792″ in 1819, organized a subscription for funds, and began designing. A lion lays dying with his front paw resting on a shield decorated with French fleur-de-lys to represent Louis XVI. The shield cannot protect itself and relies on the lion, just as the king had to rely on the Swiss Guard. The second shield has the Swiss Cross.

Pfyffer persuaded Bertel Thorvaldsen, a Danish sculptor living in Rome, to create the design models. Thorvaldsen had never seen a lion. Pfyffer wanted the lion to be dead. Thorvaldsen refused, and the two agreed the lion would be depicted dying with the shaft of a spear in his back.

Luka Thorn, a local stonemason, did the actual sculpting. Some say Thorn thought Pfyffer didn’t pay him a sufficient fee, and that in retaliation, Thorn made the lion look more like a boar. [Personally, I don’t see the resemblance.] The monument is 10 meters long and six meters high with an inscription below listing the names of officers who died at Tuileries Palace.

The monument, dedicated to Helvetiorum Fedei ac Virtuti [to the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss], was unveiled on August 10, 1821. King Frederick VIII of Denmark observed that “no more fitting, more beautiful memorial could be imagined.”

Immediately, Swiss Liberals denounced the Lion Monument. At a time when an independent Switzerland was being born, the statue was a symbol of former close ties with France and counter-revolutionary ideals.

Yet, the Lion Monument was also movingly beautiful and an immediate tourist attraction now visited annually by over 1 million people.

In 1880 Mark Twain observed that “the commerce of Lucerne consists mainly in gimcrackery of the souvenir sort; the shops are packed with Alpine crystals, photographs of scenery, and wooden and ivory carvings. I will not conceal the fact that miniature figures of the Lion of Lucerne are to be had in them. Millions of them. But they are libels upon him, every one of them.

“There is a subtle something about the majestic pathos of the original which the copyist cannot get. even the sun fails to get it; both the photographer and the carver give you a dying lion, and that is all. The shape is right, the attitude is right, the proportions are right, but that indescribable something which makes the Lion of Lucerne the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world , is wanting.” — Mark Twain, A Tramp Abroad.

And so, the lion continues to weep, touching hearts that know nothing of Swiss Guards and French kings, but recognize despair when they see it.

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Illustrations

Europe. Attribution Gunasekhar Karri, 2010.

Lithograph. Lion Monument. 1840.

Dying Lion Statue in Lucerne by A. Savin, 2022.

Postcard of Lion Monument, 1900.

Lion Monument. Photo by Author. 2023.

Olivier Pauchard. “The Lion of Lucerne: The Controversial Tourist Attraction. Swissinfo. Aug. 7, 2021.

Kira Kofoed. “The Dying Lion.” Thorvaldsen’s Museum Archives. 2013.

Mark Twain. Chapter 26, A Tramp Abroad. The Literature Network.

The post The Lion Monument: A Living Sculpture of Despair & Regret first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.

I’m just back from a cruise on the Rhine River. The route started in Amsterdam. We passed at or near Leiden and Cologne with its world famous cathedral before taking a short detour on the Moselle to visit Chochen and then returning to the Rhine to pass near Koblentz, Heidelberg, Strasbourg, and Lucerne. The weather was perfect and the journey relaxing. Just the thing to clear my head before starting the second book in the Salem Stories Series. Along the way, I learned new historical stories to share. The first of these is the story behind The Lion Monument in Lucerne, Switzerland, a sculpture Mark Twain called “the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world.”

Today’s blog is about The Lion Monument’s background. Next time, I’ll write about the monument’s history.

SWISS GUARDS & THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

Swiss mercenaries were one of the earliest mercenary infantry forces. Founded in 16^th century, Swiss mercenary units were often referred to as pikemen, though their units included halberdiers, bows and crossbows, and the early use of firearms that preceded the rapid advance of the attack column. Swiss units were known for attacks in huge columns with long pikes, their refusal to take prisoners, and their victorious record. Enlistees joined for adventure, lack of opportunity at home, and a love of fighting, or at least an adrenaline rush.

By 1740 more than 12,000 Swiss soldiers served in the French army. When the French Revolution broke out in May 1789, Swiss units were a substantial part of the royal troops Louis XVI summoned to his defense. In October, Parisian market women marched to the palace at Versailles demanding reforms. The event forced the king to relocate to the Tuileries Palace in Paris, ostensibly for his protection. In June 1791 the king and his family attempted to escape to Austria. They were caught and returned to Paris. Events escalated.

During the night of August 8, 1792,  members of the Swiss Guards realized the situation was dire and buried their regimental standards so they could not be taken or destroyed. These were later discovered by a gardener and ceremoniously burned by French Republican leaders on August 14^th. Meanwhile, the Swiss Guards were summoned to their posts at the Tuileries Palace on August 9^th.

On the 10^th of August, revolutionaries stormed the Tuileries. The royal family escaped to the Legislative Assembly, but fighting continued. The king’s Swiss Guards fought back the crowd. Half an hour after the fighting started, Louis XVI wrote the commander a note ordering the Swiss Guard back to their barracks. The Swiss Guards did not comply until they ran low on ammunition and were overrun by superior numbers.

One account says that when the fighting was over, 760 Swiss Guards, including 26 officers, were either killed in the fighting or executed after surrendering.  About 100 men managed to escape.

About 200 Guards died in prison from their wounds. In September, those who did not die in prison were tried before the Military Tribunal of the Legislative Assembly and hanged. The only exception was Major Karl Josef von Bachmann, the officer in charge at Tuileries, who was guillotined while wearing his red Guards uniform

A MYTH IS BORN

Karl Pfyffer von Altishofmen was an officer in the Swiss Guards who was away on leave in Lucerne at the time his comrades-in-arms died in battle. An uncle who sponsored Pfyffer’s position in the Guard was killed, and he probably suffered “survivors’ guilt.” While his brothers suffered and died, his life continued. Still grieving the loss, Phyffer wrote An account of the bearing of the regiment of Swiss Guards on August 10 1792 and published it in 1819 as part of his fund raising efforts to build a memorial to his fellow soldiers. Historian Alain-Jacque Pauchard notes Pfyffer’s book lacks objectivity. Pfyffer wrote a story about valiant soldiers in the Swiss Guard who were massacred by a band of revolutionaries. Recent historical investigations, however, estimate the number of Guards killed as closer to 300 than 760.

A written myth fades with time, but a sculpture encased in sandstone will stand the vagaries of historical interpretation. Creating the Lion Monument is the next blog topic.

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Illustrations

Soldier & Officer of Swiss Guards, 1757.

Bravoure des femmes parisiennes.

Storming of Tuileries. Jean Duplessis-Bertaux. 1793.

Swiss Guards on Grand Staircase during Storming of Tuileries. Henry-Paul Motte, 1792.

Kira Kofoed. “The Dying Lyon.” Thorvaldsen’s Museum Archives. 2013.

Olivier Pauchard. “The Lion of Lucerne: the controversial tourist attraction.” Swissinfo. Aug 7 2021

The post LOUIS XVI, SWISS GUARDS, & A SCULPTURED LION first appeared on Sandra Wagner-Wright.