Statues on Sticks

How dare I talk about our two famous European sticks without telling the stories about the statues on top of them. Trajan's Column out in Rome was originally crowned with a statue of a huge eagle, but was later changed to a likeness of Trajan himself. In 1588 the pope took Trajan off his column and replaced him wiht St. Peter, his thoughts being, "Mama Mia, a tall structure in Rome that doesn't have St. Peter on it!". That's pretty much it for Rome, but the cool story took place here in Paris. Its pretty obvious that Napolean would want a statue of himself on top of his little column, so he commissioned his own likeness wearing Greek robes and the whole get up, as though he were the Caesar of Western Europe. Thus it was until 1871 when the house of Bourbon (the French monarch dynasty beginning with King Henry IV and ending with King Louis XVI due to the Revolution) was temporarily restored to the throne. The Bourbon supporters toppled Napolean's statue off its lofty pedestal (see pictures above) and melted it down along with another Napolean statue from elswhere. The molten rock was recast into the statue of King Henry IV on his horse which currently stands atop Pont Neuf (see picture below). Take that Napolean! Serves 'im right. After only one King the Bourbon house was once again brought down, mostly because King Louis XVIII was a complete moron, and the Bonapartists retook the throne. One of the first orders of business was to commission a new statue of Napolean, this time in his Emperor robes, to be placed on the Vendôme column. And there it still stands. Its a pretty cool story, eh, certainly worth the time it took to read it.