Gloria Victis

Some people find surprising my tendency to visit the same cities on multiple occasions (many people just go to one place once and they're done, they can cross it off their list of places to visit). If I like a city I can keep going there very often, and passed the surprise and discoveries of the first visit, I will continue to enjoy each new visit. On one side I like seeing the same places again with a different weather or light conditions, as my perception will change drastically, on the other side they'll bring me memories from previous trips and will make me think of how I was feeling at that time. I like looking back in time as it helps me to look at the present and build the future. Furthermore, each time I'll find some new detail that had gone unnoticed previously.

I spent this last Saturday in Bordeaux, "La Belle Endormie" (Sleeping Beauty), a gorgeous "little Paris" on Le Garonne. As you can imagine from that description, Bordeaux is a stunning city, and it would deserver several posts, but I'll focus today in one of those details that had escaped my attention so far. In front of the imposing Gothic Cathedral there is a beautiful bronze sculpture, I remembered that from previous trips, but had never given it a detailed look (probably cause my eyes could not but turn again and again to the majestic cathedral and its belfry). Gloria Victis by Antonin Mercié is a really captivating and powerful representation of death and defeat following Christian tradition where a sort of Angel carries a dead warrior to heaven. It pays homage to those that perished in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71 (by the way, all of France is full of tributes to those who died in this war or in the WWI).

Bordeaux city council has the nice habit of putting most of the tourist information in both French and English (and quite often in Spanish, this is particularly common in most of southern France). The texts for this sculpture was particularly interesting, so I'll put them up here along with some pictures.