Inscribed in Latin are the following words: HELVETIORUM FIDEI AC VIRTUTI or THE LOYALTY AND BRAVERY OF SWISS, and the names of the martyred soldiers who were sacrificed, are also inscribed below the lion.
One of the reasons I wrote that the story was complex is that one: the poor soldiers and swiss officers were oblidged to fight 3 times (on 10th of Aug. and on 2 and 3 September). A Swiss friend just confirmed that aspect of the tragedy. An other aspect is the hudge massacre it has been : 786 men died – 26 officers and 760 soldiers, many of them young - and 366 survived, many of them wounded…
My Swiss friend just sent me the entire inscription carved on the rock:
(I hope my traduction will be rather correct...)
HELVETIORUM FIDEI AC VIRTUTI to the loyalty and bravery of Swiss
DIE X AUGUSTI II ET III SEPTEMBRIS MDCCXCII on days 10th of august 2nd and 3rd of september 1792
HAEC SUNT NOMINA EORUM QUI NE SACRAMENTI FIDEM FALLERENT here are the names of thoses who, to do not betray their oath
FORTISSIME PUGNANTES CECIDERUNT with great bravery, fighting, died.
here below are carved the names of the dead officers SOLERTI AMICORUM CURA CLADI SUPERFUERUNT (here are the names.ecc) survived because of the effective help of friends
here below are carved the names of the survived officersThe story of this last aspect (surviving by the help of friends) is also rather moving: many of them died during the fights but some of them also died
after the fights (they were in the streets, without weapons) because killed in the streets by the mad crowd, but the last ones were helped and hidden during days and monthes by parisians friends...
Now I report here the thoughts of a french historian when he visited the Monument of the Lion de Lucerne :
Le Lion mourant de Thorwaldsen est taillé dans le rocher même … (il) semble avoir été, le pauvre animal, aussi bon et noble qu'il était puissant. Il meurt, comme un chien fidèle, sur l'écusson des lis qu'il a juré de défendre. Il meurt et semble pleurer; s'il pleure, ce n'est pas sur lui: Voilà un vrai monument suisse. C'est une gloire unique, je crois, chez les artistes modernes, d'avoir fait le monument national d'un peuple. J'y retournai ce soir, et j'en fus encore plus touché. Les arbres qui couronnent ce rocher semblaient aussi pleurer. Le bassin qui est devant réfléchissait la noble image, en la pâlissant et lui donnant un caractère d'indécision fantastique. [...]
Jules Michelet (1838)(french historian)
This TRAGEDY impressed so much the fantasy of the people of many nations during so many time during the 19th century that, as I said, many similar lions were sculpted in the world. Here is an other one set up to the memory of american soldiers died during the civil war (Colby)
Your, sincerely
M. Canard
