Autel de la Patrie — Thionville, France
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prussel
N 49° 21.536 E 006° 10.043
32U E 294320 N 5471217
The Autel de la Patrie ("Altar of the Fatherland") in Thionville is last existing of the 36.000 monuments of this kind in France
Waymark Code: WMQ92H
Location: Grand-Est, France
Date Posted: 01/13/2016
Views: 12
During the French Revolution approximately 36,000 monuments of this type were built in France as a symbol of the citizenship and the nation. The Decree of the National Convention from July 6, 1792 ordered that every community in France had to build one "Autel de la Patrie" ("Altar of the Fatherland").
Following the decision of the municipal council of the city of Thionville from July 1796, Mathias Robert was commissioned to build this monument. It has the shape of an obelisk with a stone ball as conclusion and an inscription that recalls the successful revolution ("érigé à la mémoire de la Révolution et des conquêtes du peuple français, le 1er vendémiaire an V"). It originally stood on the Place de la Révolution (today Place du Marché). Since it was set up in 1810 at the cemetery Saint-François and marked with a cross, it has been preserved for posterity. In all other places in France, the "Autel de la Patrie" were destroyed in the post-revolutionary period.
The monument stands since 1948 at the Place Claude Arnoult, in a ceremony the French President Vincent Auriol added the awards of the Legion d'honneur and the Croix de Guerre. The Autel de la Patrie of Thionville is protected since 1989 as a cultural monument (monument historique).
source: wikipedia