For more than 180 years, the July Column has dominated the Place de la Bastille in Paris with its tall silhouette. 52 meters high, and built on the site of the Bastille fortress, this symbolic monument of eastern Paris pays tribute to the fighters who died during the Three Glorious Years. But did you know that another monument taking the shape of a giant elephant should have adorned the famous Place de la Bastille? We explain.
In 1806, water was an issue in Paris. At that time, Parisians had only 15 liters of water per day. By comparison, today, Parisians use an average of 120 liters of water per day, according to Eau de Paris. Parisians had no choice but to fetch this treasure from the Seine or from public fountains that charged a fee (water did not become free until 1812). In order to bring more water to the capital, Napoleon I decided to build 15 new fountains, but also to dig the Ourcq canal and the La Villette basin.
In 1807, Napoleon I appointed the architect Jacques Cellerier, who was finally replaced in 1812 by Jean Antoine Alavoine, to design a large fountain on the very spot where the ruins of the Bastille were located. And this project was intended to be monumental. Thus, according to a decree of 1810, this fountain was to be "in the form of a bronze elephant ", " charged with a tower ". As for the water, it was to flow from its trunk!
While it is not clear why the Emperor chose to depict an elephant, the future size of this pachyderm has been the subject of much comment. The statue of this elephant had to meet certain requirements and measure 16 meters long and 24 meters high in total with the palanquin, the base and the basin. A plaster model of the project on a scale of 1, presented near the construction site, attracted many curious people.
What about the distribution of water via this huge fountain? At the time, it was planned to bring the water from the Ourcq Canal via the Saint-Martin Canal.
But finally, this monumental fountain in the shape of an elephant was abandoned in 1814, at the fall of the Empire. As for the model, it was destroyed in 1846.
But this colossal statue of an elephant, which was supposed to allow Parisians to get water more easily, continued to arouse curiosity, as shown by this excerpt from Victor Hugo's Les Misérables in 1862. " Twenty years ago, in the southwest corner of the Place de la Bastille, near the train station, one could still see a strange monument that has already faded from the memory of Parisians. [It was an elephant of forty feet high, built of framework and masonry, carrying on its back its tower which resembled a house once painted green by some whitewash artist, now painted black by the sky, the rain and the weather.
It should be noted that the base and the basin, the only completed elements of the fountain, were used as a basis for the construction of the July Column between 1835 and 1840.
