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1-
The « Meadow of Encounter »
The
encounter of
Napoleon with the French Royal army on March 7th,
1815, can be
considered among his great victories – although no battle was
fought. |
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Napoleon
escapes from his 11-months exile on the island of Elba in February 1815
and
lands in Southern France. He has one aim, to bring down the monarchy of
Louis
XVIII. Leading an army of volunteer soldiers, he marches on Paris via
Sisteron
and Grenoble to avoid the Royalists.
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On March 7th,
1815, he enters the village of Laffrey. The
Royal troops of the 5th Line Regiment
have been sent to stop
his advance. Napoleon steps forward alone and shouts:
“Soldiers, if there is
one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, here I am.”
Many of them have
served under Napoleon before. The soldiers put there weapons down and
join him,
cheering: “Long live the Emperor!”.
Laffrey is
the first place where Napoleon wins massive support for his
return to power. He marches on to Grenoble and Paris and restores the
Empire,
but this 100-days return ends with the defeat of Waterloo in June 1815.
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2- The
Statue
The
equestrian statue of Napoleon is a work of Emmanuel Frémiet
and was
erected in Genoble on the Place of Arms (today Place de Verdun) in
1868, during
the Second Empire of Napoleon III. But the statue was knocked down and
put to
pieces during the war of 1870, at the time of the fall of the Second
Empire.
The fragments were stored first in the church of “Sainte
Marie d’en Bas” in
Grenoble, later in Paris.
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World War I
revived the cult of Napoleon I, and the Isère Department and
Paris started to argue about the statue, both wanting to own it. The
Isère
Department wished to place the statue in Laffrey and finally obtained
it.
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In 1929,
after restoration by the founder Rudier, the statue could be
erected in Laffrey in the famous “Meadow of
Encounter” on the shore of the
Lake. The restoration was financed by the State, the Isère
Department, the
Touring-Club, and a public subscription launched by the tourism office
of
Grenoble and the Dauphiné.
The site was
also flanked with two pillars supporting bronze eagles by
Gilbert.
 
The
statue was
officially inaugurated on August 31st, 1930.
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