Metz. Do you know that the statue of Charlemagne de Notre-Dame should have been in Metz?

February 1974. The forecourt of Notre-Dame is under construction. Paris no longer wants the statue of “Charlemagne and the Leudes” which clutters the site and launches an appeal. Metz raises his finger to collect as a gift the work sculpted in 1853 by Louis and Charles Rochet, placed twenty-six years later in front of the emblematic monument.

The Messins ignited, they imagine the places which could accommodate this pompous work, seven meters high and approximate on a historical plan …

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At the top of the Serpenoise gate!

We could bolt the fifteen tons of bronze on Sainte-Croix hill or at the officers’ mess, on the Place d’Armes or on the Esplanade, in front of the station or even at the top of the Porte Serpenoise!

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The Emperor with the flowered beard (742-814), son of Pépin le Bref and Berthe au Grand Pied, warrior of fifty expeditions in forty-six years of reign, surrounded by six women and four concubines, hunter of the forests of Thionville , will find a little corner to rest, no?

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No. Finally, the City did not want to pay the transport costs. Charlemagne remained there, strafed by Chinese tourists on a spree in Paris.

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