Charlemagne et ses Leudes, Sculpture in Paris, France

Charlemagne et ses Leudes is a bronze group about 7 to 7.6 metres tall and weighing 15 to 16 tonnes, standing on a stone pedestal on the south side of the Parvis Notre-Dame. Charlemagne, aged and bearded, wears the Imperial Crown and raises the long Scepter of Charles V. Below the horse's neck stand Roland, holding a labrys and the sword Durendal, and Oliver, armed with a scramasax and a pike.

The Rochet brothers conceived the monument in 1853, first intending it for Aachen, and showed a plaster version at the 1867 Universal Exposition. The bronze group was exhibited at the 1878 Universal Exposition shortly after Louis Rochet's death. Charles Rochet offered to pay for its erection, and after Eugène Viollet-le-Duc's recommendation the Paris council accepted in January 1879 as a provisional location. It was erected in 1882 on a wooden pedestal; the city bought it in 1895, and the stone pedestal dates from 1908.

The word “leude” comes from an older Frankish term for men bound to a king by personal loyalty, and the two named companions here come from tales about Charlemagne’s court. Today people mostly see the sculpture as a backdrop for photos with the cathedral, and the mounted figures read immediately as a scene of leadership and armed service.

The monument is free to approach and stands in an open, paved area where people move between the cathedral and the river. It is easy to walk around the whole piece, and the slightly raised base lets you look closely at the figures from several sides without blocking other visitors.

The scepter held aloft is not Charlemagne's but the Scepter of Charles V, made in the 14th century and now about 60 cm long in the Louvre; here it is enlarged to more than 2 metres. The imperial crown shown was not created until at least 960, for Otto I. Roland carries a double-headed axe that 19th-century France wrongly called a francisca.