Marie-Louise Monument

Erected in 1927 ‘to the valour of French youth’, the monument evokes the memory of the young recruits of 1814 who bore the name of the Empress (Marie-Louise) by associating it with that of the Bleuets of the Great War, young soldiers of class 17.

The bronze group, sculpted by Maxime Real del Sarte, depicts a soldier of the Imperial Guard wearing a shako and a poilu from 1914-1918, both holding a laurel wreath as a symbol of glory.

This monument therefore commemorates both the battle fought by Napoleon on the Craonne plateau in March 1814 and the fighting of the Great War, a hundred years later, on the same spot...

For your information, before the war there was another monument - now totally lost - probably built in 1904 in memory of the battle of Craonne on 7 March 1814.
It took the form of a simple obelisk, and was designed by the architect Georges Ermant (also Senator and Mayor of Laon).