Vercingetorix Monument, Memorial statue at Mont Auxois, Alise-Sainte-Reine, France.

The Vercingetorix Monument is a hollow copper statue 6.60 m tall and about five tonnes, made of beaten and repoussé copper sheets fixed to a girder frame, like the Statue of Liberty. Aimé Millet shows the chief with drooping moustache, long hair, a beaded necklace, a sword point-down in his right hand and his left hand on his hip. It stands on a 7 m base of Saulieu granite and Pouillenay stone by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc, with a bronze band reading "La Gaule unie..." and, below, "Napoléon III, empereur des Français, à la mémoire de Vercingétorix".

Napoleon III commissioned the monument from sculptor Aimé Millet, with Eugène Viollet-le-Duc as architect, and it was installed on 27 August 1865 at the western end of Mont Auxois, above the supposed site of Alesia. The emperor had ordered excavations there to locate the siege site. After the French defeat of 1871, Vercingetorix became a national hero and criticism of the work faded.

The bronze band on the base carries the phrase "La Gaule unie, formant une seule nation, animée d'un même esprit, peut défier l'univers", adapted from Caesar's De Bello Gallico VII, 29. Below it reads "Napoléon III, empereur des Français, à la mémoire de Vercingétorix". The wording introduces 19th-century national vocabulary absent from the original.

The statue stands at the western end of Mont Auxois, above the Alesia archaeological site, and is reached on foot along paths from the village of Alise-Sainte-Reine. The copper figure faces out over the plain where the siege took place, so the walk up also serves as the viewpoint over the battlefield.

The statue is hollow, made of beaten and repoussé copper sheets fixed to a frame of girders, the same principle as the Statue of Liberty. It was built in Paris, shown at the Palais de l'Industrie in the 1865 Salon, then moved and installed on 27 August 1865. It weighs about five tonnes and stands 6.60 m tall.