Le Vengeur, 1908

This marble statue in the Panthéon, which was completed in 1908 by Ernest Henri Dubois, commemorates the crew of the French ship Vengeur (originally Marseillois). The ship sank in 1794 after a battle with the Royal Navy. According to initial reports, the whole crew had gone down with the ship while loudly declaring their loyalty to the Republic ("Vive la Nation, vive la République!"), waving the Tricolore and singing the national anthem. While these reports were not confirmed, the legend of the Vengeur subsequently became a welcome model for propagandistic depictions intended to strengthen the republican cause.

Le vengeur, colour photograph, 2017, photographer: xiquinhosilva from Cacau; source: Wikimedia Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:57000-Paris_(39301337712).jpg, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license (CC BY 2.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/.