Monument Etienne Richaud

Monument inaugurated on July 2, 1899, dismantled in 1943 under the Vichy regime to be melted down and recovered overnight by the Richaud family. It was hidden in Mimet then returned to the Liberation and put back in place.
This sculpture homage to Etienne Richaud (1841-1889) is a bronze bust on a pedestal erected by public subscription. Etienne Richaud, son and grandson of a fisherman born at No. 7 rue Galinière in 1841, had brilliant studies and held high administrative positions.

On a very strong pedestal rests the base of a pyramidal stone column, truncated at its top to serve as a support for the bust. On one of the base faces of the column, a bronze newsboy in an unbalanced posture, written under the name of Richaud, with a laborious but no less diligent hand. An inscription now erased.

First Governor General of Indochina, then Inspector of the Navy and the colonies, he died at sea on May 31, 1889 aboard the ship Calédonien. He succumbed to an attack of cholera while crossing the Bay of Bengal only a year after his appointment.

The stone monument reflects the character. A pyramidal column of official type, it stands in straight lines and sharp angles, whose rigor, a reflection of the character of the man, is partly attenuated by the sculpted and decorative redundancies which animate two of the faces of the pyramid. Etienne Richaud is in governor's garb over which, among other glorious insignia, that of the Legion of Honor dominates. The monument would have seemed severe without the presence of the little newsboy whose presence brings freshness and realism.

We would be tempted to believe that this modest-looking little boy is the representation of Richaud as a teenager. Writing on a blackboard at the local school a lesson which he conscientiously transcribed with this perseverance which allowed him to one day access a high social position and to have his name in the memory of Martigues.

The bust of Etienne Richaud was initially placed in front of the fishing prud'homie of the Meyran plan. The Meyran plan was canceled with the construction of the Marseille-Rhône canal. The statue of Richaud was removed and placed at the town hall until it was rebuilt in 1931 on a square established in the Ile district between the Quai des Anglais and the Quai Brescon, a place it still occupies today. .

During the filming of the film Butter Cooking, this monument was transformed into a war memorial for the purposes of a scene. The name of Fernand Jouvin played by Fernandel was inscribed there, the name is removed from the monument because he is not dead.