Liberty for all

Did you ever see the statue of Washington and Lafayette in Morningside Park in Manhattan?  It is a replica.  The original is in Paris, in the 16th arrondissement.

Joseph Pulitzer, the publisher of Pulitzer Prize fame, was an immigrant from Hungary.  He admired Auguste Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty.  So he commissioned a sculpture by Bartholdi of George Washington and Lafayette, as an emblem of the friendship between the United States and France.  The statue was dedicated in 1885, and graces the uppermost end of the Square Thomas Jefferson -- a park in the middle of the Place des Etats Unis in the elegant 16th arrondissement.

(The replica was placed in Morningside Park a few years later, funded by department store owner Charles Broadway Rouss.)

I walked to Square Thomas Jefferson and back this morning, from about 8 to 10AM.  The heat wave is over, thank heavens!

The Bartholdi creation is magnificent; Joseph Pulitzer must have been pleased.  The impression that both Washington and Lafayette were men of decisive action is impossible to miss.  The details are exquisite.  (Photos below.)

Lafayette fascinates me in part because he started his ambitious and successful military career at such a young age.  I also admire the way he immediately sympathized with the American cause -- and later the French revolutions -- even though he was from an aristocratic family.  He put his heart, soul, and considerable inherited fortune into his endeavors, and the world is a better place because of him.

He wasn't perfect.  Although he was opposed to slavery, he supported the idea of gradually abolishing slavery.  Slavery is wrong, absolutely, and he knew it.  So his position should have been for immediate abolition of slavery.  He was being a pragmatist, economically, some would argue; but freedom is not a matter of economic pragmatism and democracy is messy, but necessary.

For the French Revolution in 1789, Lafayette and Abbé Sieyes wrote The Rights of Man and of the  Citizen document in consultation with Thomas Jefferson (ironically, a slave-owning racist).  This human rights declaration was inspired by the American Declaration of Independence.  One might say that the American Revolution inspired the French Revolution.  And we can say that The Rights of Man and of the Citizen heavily influenced ideas about developing freedom and democracy around the globe.

There is a monument to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man that I pass by frequently on the Champ de Mars.  I saw it again this morning, as I crossed the Champ on my way to the Place des Etats Unis.  The City of Paris commissioned this monument for the 1989 celebration of the French Revolution's 200th anniversary.  (Photos below -- please ignore the pigeon on one of the statues.)

The monument's overall form is inspired by Egypt's mastaba tombs; the artist who designed the monument is Ivan Theimer, a Czech sculptor and painter who lives in France.

From the Champ, I followed the Avenue Rapp to the Seine and to the Place de l'Alma, where freedom's flame glows (photo below). From there, my destination was just a few minutes uphill along Avenue du President Wilson and the Rue Freycinet.

The Flame of Liberty at the Place de l'Alma was funded by donors to finish the
celebration of the International Herald Tribune's 100th birthday.  It was installed
in 1989, the year of the French Revolution's bicentennial.  Today this sculpture is
informally used as a memorial to Princess Diana, whose fatal car accident happened
in a tunnel near this site.

The Place des Etats Unis is surrounded by beautiful buildings.  Some are embassies, such as those of Kuwait and Bahrain.  One former stately home of the Noailles family is now the Baccarat museum, gift shop, and restaurant (photos below).

On my way home, I passed by the Tunisian embassy on Rue Lubeck.  There was a small crowd forming at its entrance.  A security guard chatted amiably with the gathering people as he made them wait on the sidewalk.

Throughout the morning, in the Square Thomas Jefferson and the Jardins du Trocadero in particular, I was dodging sprinklers.  The gardeners are mitigating damage from the heat wave.  I was sprinkled with water a little, despite my best efforts, but I really didn't mind.

Scenes in the Champ de Mars (above and below).

The way home from the Trocadero is right by the foot of the Eiffel Tower.  I was about to be accosted by one of the ubiquitous "do you speak English" scammers on the Pont d'Iéna, but I saw her coming.  I raised my camera to my face, aiming toward the Eiffel Tower.  She kept coming anyway, expecting me to put my camera down to listen to her scam.  Instead, I moved slightly so the camera was aimed right at her face as she got in my face.  I took her photo, and she smacked my face and camera with her little piece of cardboard that she uses as a clipboard for her fake "petition."

I did not respond; I just kept walking.  But she never should have hit me where security cameras are everywhere.  Moments later, the armed soldiers who patrol the area around the Tower were walking determinedly (not strolling) in her direction.  I didn't look back.

I kept walking, past all the vendors of Eiffel Tower trinkets, who now display the trinkets on square blankets spread upon the ground.  The vendors do not roam anymore and they are not aggressive at all.  This must be the new arrangement they have with law enforcement.  But as far as I know, their activity is still technically illegal.  The trouble with enforcement was that the illegal vendors would immediately be released by the judicial system, so why should the police bother?  The new system makes sense to me; people have been selling their wares from blankets spread on the ground in Paris for thousands of years, back to the time when Paris was called Lutece.

I saw another "do you speak English" scammer stop a sweet-looking American or Canadian young couple.  I passed by and said to each of them, "don't talk to her, it is a scam."  That ended their conversation with her.

Seconds later, a man (probably the one overseeing the scammers) approached me.  I could see that I was being targeted by him.  I shook my head and waved him off as I walked to the other side of the promenade.  He stopped and laughed.  I kept walking.

Monument in the Cours de la Reine was donated by the schoolchildren of the United States in honor of Lafayette.

I enjoyed the rest of the walk home.  Once away from the throngs of tourists and predators under the Tower, the Champ is an enjoyable place in the morning.  It is an unofficial dog park for the locals.  Sprinklers were going, flowers were blooming, trees where forming deep shade when the sun peeked through the clouds.

As I passed through the streets of Grenelle, a light rain began to fall.  I soaked it in, then stopped in the friendly Nicolas wine shop on the Rue du Commerce.  Now I'm ready for the weekend.