Statue of General Desaix in Clermont-Ferrand, Bronze statue in Place de Jaude, Clermont-Ferrand, France

The statue of General Desaix is a standing bronze figure by Charles-François Lebœuf, called Nanteuil, cast in 1844 and set up in 1848. The figure wears a long cloak, knee-length coat and boots, right arm extended forward, with a small cylindrical object at its left side. It stands on a pale gray square pedestal of granite, Ruoms stone, Comblanchien stone and marble plaques, whose recessed front panel reads "GENERAL" above "DESAIX".

In August 1838 the Puy-de-Dôme general council decided to erect a statue of Desaix for Clermont-Ferrand. Charles-François Lebœuf finished it in his Paris workshop in 1844, and it stayed there until its inauguration on 13 August 1848 on a temporary brick-and-wood pedestal, before veterans who had served with Desaix. The present pedestal, designed by architect Emmanuel-Adolphe Poncelet, was installed in 1903 when Bartholdi's Vercingetorix monument was unveiled opposite. The statue and pedestal were listed as monuments historiques on 5 March 1992.

The pedestal's inscriptions list Desaix's Egyptian campaign sites (Chebreïs, Thèbes, les Pyramides) on the right face and Wissembourg, Kehl and Lauterbourg on the left, while the rear records his birth at Saint-Hilaire-d'Ayat on 17 August 1768 and death at Marengo on 14 June 1800. For the 1848 inauguration, Léonard Morel-Ladeuil made a large medallion bearing Desaix's likeness, and the republican poet Charles-Antoine Ravel wrote commemorative texts for the general.

The statue stands on the paved surface of Place de Jaude, facing the Monument to Vercingétorix at the north end of the square. The inscriptions are on all four faces of the pedestal, so walk around it to read the front, rear and side panels. The bronze figure and pedestal are listed as a monument historique since 5 March 1992.

The original brick and wood base was replaced in the early 1900s with the current granite pedestal, showing how the monument's importance evolved over time. This transformation made the statue far more visible and gave it a more permanent place in the urban landscape.