Monument à Bayard – Charleville-Mézières

Bayard replies in a noble and majestic attitude to the embassy of the besiegers of Mézières in 1521 (the counts of Nassau and Sickingen, with 35,000 men of Charles V at the head): "My friend, you will return and tell the lords of Nassau and Francis that, since the king has done me the honor of entrusting this city to me, I will hold it for so long that it will be more inconvenient for your masters to be besiegers than for me to be besiegers and that I am no longer a child who can be surprised by words."

He stands with his left hand on the hilt of his sword and his right hand stretched forward. He is wearing his armor. The knight's coat of arms is depicted in an applique on the pedestal. The monument is surrounded by a latticework.

It was inaugurated in 1893. In 1917 the Germans removed the statue; it was found again in Düsseldorf in 1922, replaced on its pedestal in 1926 and removed again in 1940 .

The original plaster sketch had remained intact in the Clément-Bayard factories in Mézières. In 2005, a third copy of the Croisy statue was cast on the basis of the one in St-Denis, at the request of the city council of Charleville-Mézières. This statue was erected in Mézières, in the Parc Mialaret, on the site of the statue from 1893.

Willem Vandenameele