The Lion of Belfort
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The Lion of Belfort is a sculpture by Frédéric Bartholdi, architect of the Statue of Liberty in New York, located in Belfort, France. It was finished in 1880 and is entirely made of pink sandstone. The blocs it is made of were individually sculpted then moved under Belfort castle to be assembled. The sculpture is 22 meters long and 11 meters high and dominates the local landscape.
The lion symbolizes the heroic resistance of Belfort during a 103 days long Prussian assault (from December 1870 to February 1871). The city was protected from 40,000 Prussians by merely 17,000 men (only 3,500 were from the military) lead by Colonel Denfert-Rochereau.
Instead of facing Prussia to the east as was intended, it was turned the other way because of German protestations.
Copies of the statue stand in the center of Place Denfert-Rochereau in Paris, and in the Jardin botanique de Montréal.
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