Promenade by the Seine

Along the Seine River in the heart of Paris, there is a mile-long, grassy, tree-lined corridor between the Pont de la Concorde and the Pont de l’Alma. It is composed of the Promenade du Cours la Reine, between the Place de la Concorde and the Place du Canada, and the Promenade du Cours Albert 1er, between the Place du Canada and Place de l’Alma. It is one of the oldest (and narrowest) parks in Paris, created by Queen Marie de Medicis in 1616. On one side of the promenade is the Seine and the very busy bateau-mouche docking facility, and on the other side is a bike path and a very busy street. What is surprising is that the promenade is an oasis of serenity, and the few people I saw there were walking their dogs. There are also sculptures at each end of the promenades and other sites/sights to see  along the way.

Marker for the Promenade du Cours la Reine

Statue of King Albert 1er

The equestrian statue of King Albert I by Armand Matial (1938) is close by the Place de la Concorde. Albert was the king of Belgium from 1909-1934. Just before World War I, he refused passage through Belgium to German troops whose objective was to attack France. He remained a staunch ally of France throughout the war, and the French erected this monument in recognition of King Albert’s loyalty. Albert is depicted in military gear because he fought with his troops and shared their danger during the war. Written across the base of the pedestal are the words, “La France Reconnaissante.” 

King Albert astride his horse

Pedestal of the sculpture

The inscription reads: “From a grateful France”

Simon Bolivar, military and political Latin American leader

The memorial to Simon Bolivar was a gift to the city of Paris from the sister republics of Latin America in 1930. It was the centennial of the death of Bolivar, “Le Liberateur,” who was instrumental in the revolutions of Latin American countries against the Spanish Empire. It is the fourth cast of Emmanuel Frémiet’s equestrian statue, which also stands in Bogota, Colombia, in Baranquilla, Colombia and in La Paz, Bolivia.You can see in the distance the Albert 1er equestrian figure.

Simon Bolivar with sword raised

A closer look at Simon Bolivar astride his horse

The inscription reads: “From the Bolivarian Republics (republics established according to Simon Bolivar’s philosophy of government) of Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Panama to the city of Paris”

Simon Bolivar’s equestrian monument is located at the foot of the Pont Alexandre III, considered to be the most ornate bridge in Paris. You can see the roof of the Petit Palais above the treetops in the background. (The Petit Palais houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts.)

Pont Alexandre III 

The bridge is named after Alexander III, the Russian Czar responsible for signing the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1892. 

Pont Alexandre III looking toward Les Invalides, a former military hospital and the final resting place of Napoleon

Pont Alexandre III looking toward the Grand Palais, a huge exhibition hall and museum complex. 

The four 56-foot-high corner pillars bear four golden equestrian groups, “Fame Restraining Pegasus.”  Each group shows Pegasus (a winged horse and mythological symbol for wisdom and fame) being restrained by allegorical representations of the sciences, art, business and industry. 

Pont Alexandre III with the glass-domed Grand Palais in the background

There is a barely discernible sculpture on the corner of the Grand Palais.

“Harmonie triumphant de la Discorde” (Harmony Triumphing over Discord) is the name of the sculpture mounted on a corner of the Grand Palais. This quadriga (chariot drawn by 4 horses), by Georges Recipion, was in the neo-baroque style created for the 1900 Universal Exposition. The baroque style was technically perfect--a precise imitation of the real thing--and had the appearance of movement. To me, the horses look as if they are going to leap off the building.

The Children’s Statue of Lafayette is located on the Cours la Reine on the other side of the bridge.

Lafayette was a French military officer and former aristocrat who participated in both the American and French revolutions. He served in the American Revolutionary War both as a general and as a diplomat. 

The statue, designed by Paul Wayland Barlettt, was a gift to France from 5 million American school children in 1908. The inscription on the pedestal of the statue of Lafayette reads: “Erected by the school children of the United States in grateful memory of Lafayette Statesman Soldier Patriot”

The Place du Canada is at the Pont des Invalides and marks the end of the Cours la Reine and the beginning of the Cours Albert 1er. On June 21, 2011, a monument was finally dedicated to the Russian Expeditionary Force in World War I in the presence of then Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin, and the French Prime Minister, Francois Fillon. The Expeditionary Force was a WWI military force sent to France by the Russian Empire at the request of the French.

Facing the Place du Canada, across the street from the Russian Memorial, two explorers are honored: Jacques Cartier, a French mariner who claimed what is now Canada for France; and Samuel Champlain, a French navigator who founded New France and Quebec City on July 3, 1608. He made the first accurate map of the coast and helped establish the settlements.

Jardin de la Nouvelle France at the corner of avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt and Cours la Reine was built in the late 19th century by the park designer, Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand.

Facing the street is a monument to the memory of Alfred de Musset, “The Poet’s Dream,” by a little-known sculptor, Alphonse de Moncel, from 1910. This statue was carved from a single block of white marble. Alfred de Musset (1810-1857) was a poet, dramatist and novelist during the romantic period in France. In this bas-relief,  Musset (R), with his female admirers, is contemplating some of his works. One of the works is “A May Night,” in which a Muse is comforting the poet, a spurned lover (L), and the other is “Namouna,” (Ctr) the story of an Egyptian slave girl who had fallen in love with her Master and did not want to be freed

From the street level, you descend a rustic, uneven staircase to the 1.7 acre garden. 

The steps downward are surrounded by lush vegetation.

The pond, fed by the Seine, can turn murky. Its banks are overgrown with plantings.

The stream trickles over rocks.

The stream continues downward over and past rock formations. 

A hundred-year-old weeping beech shades a pond and waterfall.

Garden steps lead up to the street-level part of the garden.

Looking down the steps leading to the lower level of the garden

A smoke bush lends an ethereal look to this idyllic garden.

Promenade du cours Albert 1er 

Reverend Father Komitas

In 1915, Armenians were targeted for extinction  because their homeland lay within the territory of what is now the Republic of Turkey. The genocide resulted in the deaths of  more than a million people. Pere Komitas, an Armenian priest and renowned composer, experienced a mental breakdown after witnessing the persecution of his countrymen.

The monument was sculpted by David Erevantzi (1940). Mayor Delanoe, dedicated the statue and said, “To recognize that this genocide took place and to do so without any aggressiveness towards the Turkish people of today, to put this great monument in the heart of Paris to the memory of all the victims of the genocide and also of all Armenians who died for France is a way of saying: truth will not divide us, truth will bring us together.” The sculpture is located very near the Armenian Cathedral on rue Jean Goujon.

The Inscription reads: “In honor of Komitas, composer and musicologist, and  the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian genocide of 1915 carried out in the Ottoman Empire.

A giant Tyrannosaurus Rex sculpture sits atop a platform at the Bateaux-Mouches station on the Seine River at Quai de la Conference. It is about 72 feet long from skull to tail and 13 feet high  and is an identical replica of a T-Rex that was found in China. The sculptor, Philippe Pasqua, and his team cast, bone by bone (350 of them), the T-Rex in China and reproduced it as you see it here made entirely in chromed aluminum.

The sculpture was requested by Charlotte Bruel-Matovic, the daughter of the founder of Bateaux-Mouches, in an effort to support and promote contemporary art along the river. It seems like an odd piece of art to appear so completely out of context on the bank of the Seine, and it doesn’t look nearly so ferocious when rendered in silver, but it is a fun surprise to passers-by and patrons ready to board a bateau-mouche for a river cruise.

Memorial to Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz by Antoine Bourdelle

Adam Mickiewicz (1798-1855) was a Polish poet and political activist whose writings were an inspiration for uprisings against the three imperial powers, Russia, Prussia and Austria, which had partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth out of existence. Sovereign Poland was eliminated for 123 years.  Active in the struggle to win independence for his home region, Mickiewicz was exiled to Russia, where he spent 5 years. He went first to Rome and then to Paris. He died in Istanbul, where he had gone to help organize Polish and Jewish forces to fight Russia in the Crimean War. 

Antoine Bourdelle had long been interested in working on a monument to Mickiewicz and needed no persuasion to accept the commission when approached in 1908. He already knew much of the great champion of Polish national freedom. Bourdelle is a celebrated French sculptor whose self-named museum in Montparnasse is a must-see. The monument was a gift from Poland to France. Mickiewicz is at the top of the monument, and the angel with sword represents the Polish Epic. The bas-reliefs at the base of the column were inspired by characters from Mickiewicz’ deeply patriotic poetic dramas and poems.

Bas-relief: the Three Polands, an allegory for Poland's tormented history 

Aldona and Old Halban

The Three Captives and Dziady

La Seine
In a small pie-shaped slice of garden on one side of Cours Albert 1er, is a reclining statue representing the Seine River. The sculptor, Gerard Choain, was dedicated to traditional sculpture. It was installed in 1962.

La Seine
It looked like, but it wasn’t, one of Maillot’s (1861-1944) voluptuous beauties in the Tuileries Garden.

At the end of the Seine Promenade is the Place de la Reine Astrid in the 8th arrondissement. The street that runs alongside the Place is Avenue Montaigne, a very short, very fashionable street, where high fashion houses such as Chanel, Nina Ricci, Louis Vuitton, Christian Dior, Valentino, Emmanuel Ungaro, Dolce & Gabana, Ralph Lauren, and Giorgio Armani are all located. Rue Jean Goujon, where the Armenian Cathedral is located, extends behind the monument.

Place de la Reine Astrid

The monument in a triangular-shaped area commemorates the beautiful Belgian Queen Astrid who died tragically young at the age of 29 in an automobile accident in 1935. She was the wife of King Leopold III, son of King Albert 1er. It is the work of Isidore De Rudder, a Belgian sculptor, installed in 1923. The monument depicts two women holding hands in friendship and two children underneath their hands.  The woman on the left wearing a Phrygian cap represents France, and the woman on the right represents Belgium, joining together in friendship. (A Phrygian cap symbolizes freedom and became popular headwear during the French Revolution.)

The inscription on the base (behind the flowers) reads:
"A LA FRANCE - LA BELGIQUE RECONNAISSANTE - 1914-1918"
("TO FRANCE - FROM A GRATEFUL BELGIUM - 1914-1918")

Reine Astrid monument with the Eiffel Tower in the background

Hauntingly, the Place de la Reine Astrid is near the infamous Place de l’Alma Tunnel, where Diana, Princess of Wales, also perished in a car crash. 

La Flamme de la Liberte (The Flame of Liberty) is a replica of  the torch held by our own Statue of Liberty. The Flame was offered to the French by the International Herald Tribune in 1989 as a lasting symbol of the friendship uniting the two countries, just as the statue itself was, when it was given to the United States by France. The Flame was installed between the Place de l’Alma and the foot of the Pont de l’Alma. 

This location is above the entrance to the tunnel of the Pont de l’Alma, where Princess Diana died in a car accident on August 31, 1997. In the background of this photo, you can see cars descending into the tunnel. The car crash occurred directly below the monument. Devoted fans of Princess Diana have turned the Flame into her unofficial memorial. Mistakenly but understandably, people who visit this spot think that it was built in remembrance of Diana. 

The Flame of Liberty is across a very busy intersection from the Place de La Reine Astrid.

The inscription reads: “The Flame of Liberty. An exact replica of the Statue of Liberty's flame offered to the people of France by donors throughout the world as a symbol of Franco-American friendship. On the occasion of the centennial of the International Herald Tribune. Paris 1887-1987."

Becky by the Seine at the Pont de l’Alma, at the end of this beautiful Promenade.