It is a lovely, discreet and original statue. It represents Turenne, but Turenne as a child, with wavy hair, a sword in his hand and his shoe treading a cannon barrel. At the intersection of Rue Debelleyme, Rue de Normandie and Rue de Turenne, this bronze is moving by its small size, which makes its subject larger than life, and by its location.
Unlike Parisian statues, often placed prominently in busy places, this statue is in fact located a little away, on a simple sidewalk on a secondary axis, near a bench, under a tree. The result is a feeling of humanity and intimacy with this character that we encounter every day on the way to the bakery or the metro.
Despite his pedestal, this child Turenne speaks to us at human level. He speaks to us informally and we got used to him like a kid from the neighborhood. The work is by Lucien Benoit Hercule (1846-1913), an artist from Toulon who worked for the Paris City Hall, which led him to create this statue.
As for Turenne, he is, as everyone knows (or not), a French hero. Born in 1611 in Sedan, Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne went down to posterity under the name of Viscount de Turenne. This soldier was one of the best generals of Louis XIII, then of Louis XIV. Popular figure, talented strategist, promoted Marshal of France in 1643 and general marshal of the king's camps and armies in 1660, he is a military glory par excellence of the Grand Siècle. In Germany, in Holland, in Alsace, in the Vosges, on the Rhine, in Flanders, his feats of arms and victories are innumerable. It was he who conquered Roussillon, then annexed by Richelieu during the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, thus expanding France.
In 1652, Turenne won, very close to the location of the statue, the famous Battle of Faubourg Saint-Antoine, in front of the Porte Saint-Antoine, on the site of today's Place de la Bastille. He defeats the Prince of Condé who then threatens the kingdom of which the young King Louis XIV is only fifteen years old. Turenne is also a true “Maraisian”. He lived for a long time in a private mansion, which has now disappeared, on rue de Turenne, between numbers 66 and 70.
Text: Axel G.
Photos: ©Anaïs Costet
18.02.19
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