Modern-day France has an ambivalent relationship with its Revolutionary past. There are almost no public monuments, with one strange exception - the Place de Révolution française in a modern development in distant Montpellier. Created in 2007 the project was the brainchild of the controversial mayor of Montpellier and président of the Languedoc-Roussillon region, Georges Frêche, and the design of a well-respected architect, Adrien Fainsilber. It is tucked away from the main town, on the opposite side of the River Lez, and is small-scale and slickly metropolitan in concept. Reproductions of iconic 18th-century sculptures sit on slender pillars set in smooth paving, surrounded by administrative offices. In the pictures there is no-one much around; one imagines the occasional office worker out for some air in their lunch break. Mortal enemies rest immobilised on their respective plinths and the blood of the Terror feels comfortingly remote. No-one in Montpellier seems to have been much bothered as to the political correctness of the display (though M. Frêche's subsequent plan to erect statues of Lenin and Mao in a "Place du XXe siècle" caused rather more ill-feeling....). Google Streetview There are several websites which have nice illustrations of the various statues, which are bronze on steel bases. Here is a summary list of the original works: Robespierre Pierre-Jean David d'Angers Louis-Marie de la Révellière-Lépeaux [Angers deputy] (1824) Joseph Lakanal (1839) Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès (1830) Louis-Antoine de Saint-Just (1848) Georges Couthon (1844) Marie-Joseph de La Fayette (1829) André Chénier (1839) Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu (1837) Jean-Antoine Houdon Antoine Barnave (between 1789 and 1793) Louis-Pierre Deseine Jean Sylvain Bailly (1789) Emile Carlier Madame Roland (1893) Claude-André Deseine Maximilien de Robespierre (1791) François Martin Camille Desmoulins (fin XVIIIe siècle) Paul Eugène Victor Bacquet Georges Danton (vers1883) Anon Jean-Paul Marat References Feature from Harmonie (Montpellier Agglomération) October 2007: http://www.montpellier-agglo.com/servlet/com.univ.collabqoratif.utils.LectureFichiergw?ID_FICHIER=1191234603602&ID_FICHE=5604 Nella Buscot "Sculptures à Montpellier - place de Révolution française" [website] http://www.nella-buscot.com/jardins_montpellier_prf_1.php