Lodève war memorial, War memorial in Lodève, France

The Lodève war memorial is a stone monument in the former episcopal park beside the cathedral in Lodève, southern France. Paul Dardé carved it in 1930 from Lens stone patinated with acids to an ochre tone. A recumbent fallen soldier, helmeted and belted, lies in the foreground; behind him stand four women and two children among carved leaves and branches.

The memorial was inaugurated in 1930 by Minister Louis Germain-Martin to honor soldiers from Lodève who died in the First World War. It was built during a period when towns across France were creating monuments in response to the enormous human losses of that conflict.

The four women, dressed to suggest the four seasons, also stand for different social classes gathered at the deathbed of a poilu, with one woman collapsed on his body. Two children represent innocence and the civilian dead. Sculptor Paul Dardé, a stretcher-bearer in 1914, made the work both realist and symbolist, and his anti-militarism shows in a grief that strikes every class alike.

The memorial sits in the former episcopal park, a quiet area just next to the cathedral that is easy to reach on foot from the town center. Official ceremonies take place on national memorial days, so a visit on those dates will show the site at its most active.

The sculptor Paul Dardé served as a stretcher-bearer during the First World War, carrying wounded soldiers directly from the front lines. That firsthand experience with loss and suffering can be felt in the restrained, human way the figures are rendered.