The Carrousel Workshop

The Carrousel Workshop

Arc du Carrousel

I had promised to return to the sculpture workshops placed at the foot of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel during its restoration, but time passed. Three weeks ago, as I was crossing the Place du Carrousel, instead of seeing a swan stretching its head “toward the ironic, cruelly blue sky,” like the unfortunate waterfowl described by Baudelaire in his “Tableaux parisiens,” I saw, in a sky dappled with light clouds that gave it a kinder feel, a horse climbing through the air. It was one of the animals of the Triumphal Quadriga, hoisted at the end of a cable by a crane, rising high as it prepared to reassume its place at the top of the Arc. A few days later, the entire quadriga had joined him there; only Peace and Victory were missing at their side. As for the eight Old Guard soldiers on the upper level, they were beyond repair, fretted by the elements: historic plaster casts were 3D scanned to make foam models—the sapper with his ax, the cuirassier with his helmet—which sculptors are copying in marble. The brilliant idea was to have these copies made on-site, in two workshops whose windows faced the garden, so passersby could follow the craftsmen’s work. Each time I walked nearby, I observed curious onlookers with their noses pressed to the glass. The soldiers of Napoléon’s Grande Armée will return atop their columns before the Olympics.