The Skirmisher statue

The skirmisher is a limestone statue of Auguste Arnaud, made for the old Alma bridge in Paris.

With the construction of a bridge Napoleon III wanted, to celebrate the Crimean campaign but especially the first victory obtained on September 20, 1854 at the Battle of Alma.

The inauguration of the Pont de l'Alma should have taken place during the Universal Exhibition of 1855, but as the bridge was not completed on time, it was inaugurated a year later, on April 2, 1856, by Napoleon III.

In the name of the glorious battle and to pay tribute to the four army corps, he wanted to install four statues of soldiers on the bridge, backed by the pillars, representing the best beaten and most deserving regiments of the Crimean army: The Zouave, the Grenadier, the Skirmisher and the Artilleryman.

The first two statues were commissioned from the sculptor Georges Diebolt (1816-1861).

On December 17, 1856, Auguste Arnaud was selected to make the statues of the Skirmisher and the Artilleryman. They were inaugurated on August 15th, 1858 by Napoleon III.

The statue of the Skirmisher was installed on the pile closest to the left bank of the Seine (on the side of the current 7th arrondissement), upstream.

The work represented a skirmisher, an infantryman of the French army.

Between 1970 and 1974, because of its narrowness and settlement, the bridge was completely replaced. As the new Alma bridge has only one pier, only the zouave was kept in its place. The three other statues were moved: the grenadier in Dijon, the Skirtmisher in the Bois de Vincennes (not far from the fort of Vincennes where the first company of foot chasseurs was founded) and the artilleryman was offered and transferred to La Fère (Aisne department), a city dear to the hearts of artillerymen, where the 41st marine artillery regiment was based until 1993.

In 1973 the statue of Skirtmisher was moved to the south facade of the redoubt of Gravelle. It directly overlooks the A4 motorway, from which it is clearly visible.

**The new location of the statue of the Skirmisher**

The redoubt of Gravelle is a small fortification located in the Bois de Vincennes. It was built between 1840 and 1845.

A redoubt is a military infrastructure: a fortification, completely closed and with no re-entrant angles. If the structure has reentrant angles, it is a fort.

Charles Auguste Arnaud (La Rochelle, August 22, 1825 - Chantilly, September 30, 1883) known as Auguste Arnaud, is a French sculptor.

First a student at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts) in Angers, he then entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

He exhibited regularly at the Salon from 1846 to 1865.

Among his works are numerous busts, including those of the Comte de Clarac (Commission of 1852 for the Louvre Museum), The architect Fontaine (1854 - 1858), Ferdinand de Lesseps or the composer Halévy. Arnaud also made monumental works: the Skirtmisher and the Artilleryman for the Alma bridge symbolizing, like the Zouave and the Grenadier of the sculptor Georges Diebolt, the victory of France and its allies at the Alma during the Crimean War on September 20, 1854. He had designed in 1852, for the Sées’s Cathedral in Orne, the tympanum and 35 statues relating to the life of the Virgin and, for La Rochelle, his hometown, in 1853, a monument of M. Fleuriau de Bellevue (bust and bas-relief in bronze).

Sorry by the failure of his statue Venus with golden hair, despite its purchase by Emperor Napoleon III at the 1863 salon, Arnaud gradually descends into madness. He died brutally in a railway accident in 1883 in Chantilly.

Here are some of his works;

The Artilleryman
The statue is installed at La Fère, in the Aisne department, near the barracks in the Drouot district.
The work represents an artilleryman from the French army in the 19th century.

Comte Charles de Clarac (1777 - 1847)
Art historian, anthropologist, archaeologist,
botanical illustrator

Pierre-François Fontaine (1762 - 1853)
Architect

**Fromental Halévy (1799-1862)**
**French composer**

Jules-Eugène Lenepveu (1819 - 1898)
French Painter

Louis de Fleuriau (1761 - 1852)
Politician, naturalist and geologist

**La Rochelle paying tribute to its celebrities, Aufrédi, Dupaty, Doriole, Duperré, Guiton, Fleuriau, Réaumur and Valin (1852)**

Bronze plaque in high relief representing a woman personifying La Rochelle, inscribing on a stele the names of her famous sons. On the right, a man with a cape is leaning on the coat of arms of the city, which is Louis Fleuriau.

A year after Fleuriau’s death, the sculptor Arnaud produced a tribute monument for La Rochelle, his hometown, consisting of a bust and bronze bas-reliefs placed on a stone base. This monument was in the Garden of Plants until 1943 when, for the needs of the war, the bust was melted. On the other hand, one of the bas-reliefs has been kept and is today preserved in the collections of the Art and History Museums of La Rochelle.

trest

Address: The Bois de Vincennes, Paris