The ''Lion Monument'' (), or the ''Lion of Lucerne'', is a

rock relief A rock relief or rock-cut relief is a relief, relief sculpture carved on solid or "living rock" such as a cliff, rather than a detached piece of stone. They are a category of rock art, and sometimes found as part of, or in conjunction ...

in Lucerne, Switzerland, designed by

Bertel Thorvaldsen Albert Bertel Thorvaldsen (; sometimes given as Thorwaldsen; 19 November 1770 – 24 March 1844) was a Danes, Danish-Icelanders, Icelandic Sculpture, sculptor and medallist, medalist of international fame, who spent most of his life (1797–183 ...

and hewn in 1820–21 by Lukas Ahorn. It commemorates the Swiss Guards who were killed in 1792 during the French Revolution, when revolutionaries stormed the

Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (, ) was a palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the Seine, directly in the west-front of the Louvre Palace. It was the Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henri IV to Napoleon III, until it was b ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

. It is one of the most famous monuments in Switzerland, visited annually by about 1.4 million tourists. In 2006, it was placed under Swiss monument protection. American author

Mark Twain Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by the pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, and essayist. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has produced," with William Fau ...

praised the sculpture of a mortally wounded

lion The lion (''Panthera leo'') is a large Felidae, cat of the genus ''Panthera'', native to Sub-Saharan Africa and India. It has a muscular, broad-chested body (biology), body; a short, rounded head; round ears; and a dark, hairy tuft at the ...

as "the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world."

Background

From the early 17th century, a

regiment A regiment is a military unit. Its role and size varies markedly, depending on the country, military service, service, or administrative corps, specialisation. In Middle Ages, Medieval Europe, the term "regiment" denoted any large body of l ...

of Swiss Guards had served as part of the Royal Household of France. On 6 October 1789, King

Louis XVI Louis XVI (Louis-Auguste; ; 23 August 1754 – 21 January 1793) was the last king of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. The son of Louis, Dauphin of France (1729–1765), Louis, Dauphin of France (son and heir- ...

had been forced to move with his family from the

Palace of Versailles The Palace of Versailles ( ; ) is a former royal residence commissioned by King Louis XIV located in Versailles, Yvelines, Versailles, about west of Paris, in the Yvelines, Yvelines Department of Île-de-France, Île-de-France region in Franc ...

to the

in Paris. In June 1791 he tried to flee to Montmédy near the frontier, where troops under royalist officers were concentrated. In the 10th of August Insurrection (1792), revolutionaries stormed the palace. Fighting broke out after the Royal Family had been escorted from the Tuileries to take refuge with the Legislative Assembly. The Swiss Guards ran low on ammunition and were overwhelmed by superior numbers. A note written by the King, half an hour after firing had commenced, has survived, ordering the Swiss to retire and return to their barracks. Delivered in the middle of the fighting, this was only acted on after their position had become untenable.M.J. Sydenham, p. 111, ''The French Revolution'', B.T. Batsford Ltd London 1965 Tuileriensturm

Around 760 of the Swiss Guards defending the Tuileries were killed during the fighting or massacred after surrender. This number is possibly too high, according to late 20th-century research. An estimated two hundred more died in prison of their wounds or were killed during the September Massacres that followed. Apart from about a hundred Swiss who escaped from the Tuileries, the only survivors of the regiment were a 300 strong detachment which had been sent to Normandy, under the king's orders, to escort grain convoys a few days before August 10. The Swiss officers were mostly amongst those massacred, although Major Karl Josef von Bachmann — in command at the Tuileries — was formally tried and

guillotine A guillotine ( ) is an apparatus designed for effectively carrying out executions by Decapitation, beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled blade suspended at the top. The condemned person is secur ...

d in September, still wearing his red uniform of the Guard. Two surviving Swiss officers achieved a senior rank under

Napoleon Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...

.Jerome Bodin, p. 259, "Les Suisses au Service de la France", Among the Swiss Guards in France who survived the insurrection and soldiers from the eleven disbanded Swiss line regiments, about 350 later joined the Revolutionary Armies of the

French Republic France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

. Others joined the

counter-revolutionaries A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution has occurred, in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "c ...

in the

War in the Vendée The War in the Vendée () was a counter-revolutionary insurrection that took place in the Vendée region of French First Republic, France from 1793 to 1796, during the French Revolution. The Vendée is a coastal region, located immediately so ...

. In 1817, the Swiss Federal Diet awarded the commemorative medal ''Treue und Ehre'' (Loyalty and Honor) to 389 of the survivors of the regiment.

Memorial

Karl Pfyffer von Altishofen, an officer of the Guards who had been on leave in Lucerne at the time of the August fight, later wrote a book detailing the regiment of Swiss Guards during the French Revolution. This book created a strong reaction throughout conservative circles in Switzerland, which motivated him to organize a public subscription to finance a commemorative monument. He began collecting money in 1818, primarily from European Royal houses. He commissioned Danish sculptor

to design the image, and contracted

stonemason Stonemasonry or stonecraft is the creation of buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone as the primary material. Stonemasonry is the craft of shaping and arranging stones, often together with mortar and even the ancient lime mortar ...

Lukas Ahorn to fashion the monument in a former

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

quarry A quarry is a type of open-pit mining, open-pit mine in which dimension stone, rock (geology), rock, construction aggregate, riprap, sand, gravel, or slate is excavated from the ground. The operation of quarries is regulated in some juri ...

near Lucerne. The monument is dedicated ''Helvetiorum Fidei ac Virtuti'' ("To the loyalty and bravery of the Swiss"). Carved into the cliff face, the monument measures ten metres in length and six metres in height. The dying lion is portrayed impaled by a

spear A spear is a polearm consisting of a shaft, usually of wood, with a pointed head. The head may be simply the sharpened end of the shaft itself, as is the case with Fire hardening, fire hardened spears, or it may be made of a more durable materia ...

, covering a

shield A shield is a piece of personal armour held in the hand, which may or may not be strapped to the wrist or forearm. Shields are used to intercept specific attacks, whether from close-ranged weaponry like spears or long ranged projectiles suc ...

bearing the

fleur-de-lis The ''fleur-de-lis'', also spelled ''fleur-de-lys'' (plural ''fleurs-de-lis'' or ''fleurs-de-lys''), is a common heraldic charge in the (stylized) shape of a lily (in French, and mean and respectively). Most notably, the ''fleur-de-lis'' ...

of the

French monarchy France was ruled by monarchs from the establishment of the kingdom of West Francia in 843 until the end of the Second French Empire in 1870, with several interruptions. Classical French historiography usually regards Clovis I, king of the Fra ...

. Beside him is another shield bearing the

coat of arms of Switzerland The coat of arms of the Swiss Confederation shows the same white-on-red cross as the flag of Switzerland, but on a heraldic shield instead of the square field. The federal coat of arms (''eidgenössisches Wappen'') was defined by the Swiss Diet ...

. The inscription below the sculpture lists the names of the officers, and gives the approximate numbers of soldiers who died (DCCLX = 760), and survived (CCCL = 350). The work was completed in 1821. France_moderne.svg, The

of the

House of Bourbon The House of Bourbon (, also ; ) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Kingdom of Navarre, Navarre in the 16th century. A br ...

Insigne Helveticum.svg,

Coat of arms of Switzerland The coat of arms of the Swiss Confederation shows the same white-on-red cross as the flag of Switzerland, but on a heraldic shield instead of the square field. The federal coat of arms (''eidgenössisches Wappen'') was defined by the Swiss Diet ...

. Löwendenkmal 2007-08-25.jpg Luzern asv2022-10 Löwendenkmal img1.jpg, The ''Lion Monument'' in 2022

Reception

Even before the monument was built, there was concern for its political message glorifying the

ancien régime ''Ancien'' may refer to * the French word for " ancient, old" ** Société des anciens textes français * the French for "former, senior" ** Virelai ancien ** Ancien Régime ** Ancien Régime in France {{disambig ...

. It immediately elicited a combination of praise, national pride, and public criticism, with some displeased that a monument was built to honor Swiss citizens dying for a foreign monarchy. Swiss liberals felt that the personification of Switzerland as a lion seemed to glorify a conservative, counter-revolutionary mindset, and some threatened to saw off one of the lion's paws in protest. In 1880, Mark Twain wrote of the monument:

References in literature and culture

* The monument is described by

Thomas Carlyle Thomas Carlyle (4 December 17955 February 1881) was a Scottish essayist, historian, and philosopher. Known as the "Sage writing, sage of Chelsea, London, Chelsea", his writings strongly influenced the intellectual and artistic culture of the V ...

in '' The French Revolution: A History'' (1837). * In ''The

Chalet School The Chalet School is a series of 58 school story novels by Elinor Brent-Dyer, Elinor M. Brent-Dyer, initially published between 1925 and 1970. The fictional school was initially located in the Tyrol (state), Austrian Tyrol, before it was moved t ...

Does It Again'' (1955),

Elinor Brent-Dyer Elinor M. Brent-Dyer (6 April 1894 – 20 September 1969) was an English writer of children's literature who wrote more than one hundred books during her lifetime, the most famous being the ''Chalet School'' series. Early life and education Br ...

describes the monument, its history and the associated chapel. * In '' The Lions of Lucerne'' (2002) author Brad Thor describes the monument and the

Swiss Guard The Pontifical Swiss Guard,; ; ; ; , %5BCorps of the Pontifical Swiss Guard%5D. ''vatican.va'' (in Italian). Retrieved 19 July 2022. also known as the Papal Swiss Guard or simply Swiss Guard,Swiss Guards , History, Vatican, Uniform, Require ...

that it commemorates. * In her ''

New Yorker New Yorker may refer to: * A resident of New York: ** A resident of New York City and its suburbs *** List of people from New York City ** A resident of the New York (state), State of New York *** Demographics of New York (state) * ''The New Yor ...

'' tribute "My Buddy" (2017),

Patti Smith Patricia Lee Smith (born December 30, 1946) is an American singer, songwriter, poet, painter, author, and photographer. Her 1975 debut album '' Horses'' made her an influential member of the New York City-based punk rock movement. Smith has fu ...

, while standing in front of the monument, reflects upon the death of

Sam Shepard Samuel Shepard Rogers III (November 5, 1943 – July 27, 2017) was an American playwright, actor, director, screenwriter, and author whose career spanned half a century. He wrote 58 plays as well as several books of short stories, essays, ...

. * Although sculptor T. M. Brady denied it, his large marble sculpture ''The Lion'' was a near-identical copy of the Lucerne Lion. It was installed in the Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia in 1894 to honor fallen soldiers of the Confederacy during the American Civil War. That monument became a target of anti-racist sentiment in the 21st century, and was removed from the cemetery on 7 August 2021.

Notes

External links