Monument Barrès, Lantern of the Dead in Vaudémont, France.

The Monument Barrès is a lantern of the dead on the signal de Vaudémont, the highest point of the Sion hill and the Lorraine plateau at 540 or 541 metres. It stands on a stepped platform: a square base carries a rounded column of several vertical shafts, above which a ring of small columns supports a conical roof with a finial. A flight of low steps is cut into the platform on the right side.

After Maurice Barrès died in late 1923, a public subscription was launched in 1924 by a committee with Marshal Lyautey as honorary president and Prince Charles-Louis de Beauvau-Craon as secretary-general. Work began in 1927, and the monument was inaugurated on 23 September 1928 before about 15,000 people, with speeches by Paul Bourget, Raymond Poincaré and Lyautey. The landscape architect Achille Duchêne designed it, drawing heavily on the lantern of the dead at Fenioux.

The monument is a lantern of the dead, a form traditionally lit for the deceased, and it was raised in honour of Maurice Barrès, who celebrated the hill of Sion in his novel La Colline inspirée. Its designer, landscape architect Achille Duchêne, modelled it closely on the lantern of the dead at Fenioux. The inauguration on 23 September 1928 drew some 15,000 people, with speeches by Paul Bourget, Raymond Poincaré and Marshal Lyautey.

The monument is reached by a 270-metre zigzag path that starts at the edge of the D53, the corniche Gaston Canel road linking Sion and Vaudémont along the ridge. The site is the highest point of the Lorraine plateau, at 540 or 541 metres, so the climb is short but exposed. The monument overlooks a dry limestone lawn, an espace naturel sensible, burned by sun and wind and reworked in 1996.

The monument is a lantern of the dead, a form Achille Duchêne copied closely from the 12th-century lantern at Fenioux. It stands at 540 or 541 metres, the highest point of the Lorraine plateau. The limestone grassland below it is a protected sensitive natural area, dry and often scorched by sun and wind, and was reworked in 1996.