Monument Countess of Orléans - Spa

To celebrate her recovery, the children of Madame la duchesse d'Orléans had erect a small cylindrical monument near the famous spring La Sauvenière. She had travelled to Spa in 1787 to take a cure.

The monument is made of wood painted to imitate white marble. During the French Revolution, on December 6, 1792, the monument was destroyed .

In 1837, Louise-Marie d'Orléans (one of the children of Madame la duchesse d'Orléans) asked her father, the King of France, to restore the monument . The monument was restored on 27 July 1841. That year, the French monarch Louis-Philippe sent a monument made of Namur stone, modelled on the old monument.

This is the inscription engraved on the monument :

IN ACKNOWLEDGEMENT, IN AUGUST 1787, TO THE WATERS OF LA SAUVENIERE WHICH HAD RESTORED THE HEALTH OF MADAME THE DUCHESS OF ORLEANS, HER CHILDREN WISHED TO DEDICATE A MEMORY OF THIS EVENT, WHICH IS CLOSE TO THEM
BY ERECTING THIS MONUMENT AT THE END OF THE FOREST THEY WALKING THROUGH WITH THEIR SWEET MOTHER

THIS MONUMENT WAS DESTROYED ON DECEMBER 6, 1792
WAS RESTORED BY ORDER OF HM LOUIS-PHILIPPE 1st
KING OF THE FRENCH, JULY 1, 1841

The text is not exactly the same as in 1787 - the Revolution has come and gone, and morals have changed! On 7 June 1843, the French monarch had a metal fence placed around the monument ; it was made by the locksmith Moressée.

Willem Vandenameele