The statue was a gift. In 1865, according to Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, a successful 31-year-old sculptor, several French intellectuals opposed to the oppressive regime of Napoleon III were at a small dinner party discussing their admiration for America's success in establishing a democratic government and abolishing slavery at the end of the Civil War. The dinner was hosted by Edouard Rene Lefebvre de Laboulaye. Laboulaye was a scholar, jurist, abolitionist and a leader of the "liberals," the political group dedicated to establishing a French republican government modeled on America's constitution.
As the conversation went on, reflecting on the centennial of American independence only 11 years in the future, Laboulaye commented, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if people in France gave the United States a great monument as a lasting memorial to independence and thereby showed that the French government was also dedicated to the idea of human liberty?"
Laboulaye's casual question struck a responsive chord in Bartholdi. Years later, recalling the dinner, Bartholdi wrote that Laboulaye's idea "interested me so deeply that it remained fixed in my memory."
So was sown the seed of inspiration that would become the Statue of Liberty.
As far as being a silly joke without the statue, well, I do not believe that you really that shallow to believe such a fallacy. Human Liberty is not depended on statues but on humans themselves and their desire for same. LOLove.
thanks for this exhaustive history lesson, but i'll just have to say it once again. without this triumph of french genius
you yankees would be a sorry bit of a silly joke of a nation. as a foreigner, i should know better what's important and what's not for your public image
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus? Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus ? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
We owe the CONCEPT of liberty to them. The American Revolution only happened because the American Founders saw that the French Revolution actually worked.
Americans who hate the French (particularly since most of us have never met a French person) are terribly ignorant.
oh no i hope we don't. i have a frenchman and a yankee here trying to turn my serene journal into a bloody political battlefield (see comments for my vietcong torture pics)
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Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
"I think that dog needs a bath more than I do, especially if it it is French, for they only bath once a month !"
Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 06:27 am (UTC)Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 10:18 am (UTC)As the conversation went on, reflecting on the centennial of American independence only 11 years in the future, Laboulaye commented, "Wouldn't it be wonderful if people in France gave the United States a great monument as a lasting memorial to independence and thereby showed that the French government was also dedicated to the idea of human liberty?"
Laboulaye's casual question struck a responsive chord in Bartholdi. Years later, recalling the dinner, Bartholdi wrote that Laboulaye's idea "interested me so deeply that it remained fixed in my memory."
So was sown the seed of inspiration that would become the Statue of Liberty.
As far as being a silly joke without the statue, well, I do not believe that you really that shallow to believe such a fallacy. Human Liberty is not depended on statues but on humans themselves and their desire for same. LOLove.
Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 11:12 am (UTC)you yankees would be a sorry bit of a silly joke of a nation. as a foreigner, i should know better what's important and what's not for your public image
Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 11:15 am (UTC)Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 11:19 am (UTC)Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 08:37 pm (UTC)Editorial Page, New York Sun, 1897
We take pleasure in answering thus prominently the communication below, expressing at the same time our great gratification that its faithful author is numbered among the friends of The Sun:
I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, "If you see it in The Sun, it's so." Please tell me the truth, is there a Santa Claus?
Virginia O'Hanlon
Virginia, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a sceptical age. They do not believe except what they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours, man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus! It would be as dreary as if there were no Virginias. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The external light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.
Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies. You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if you did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.
You tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived could tear apart. Only faith, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, Virginia, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.
No Santa Claus ? Thank God he lives and lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay 10 times 10,000 years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!!
Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-14 07:38 am (UTC)oh my god i do believe in fairies! i even have one
He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist
this is a very sophisticated trick to disillusion virginian about generosity and devotion. bitches!
Re: Is that a French tourist ? ha ha ha . . . Sorry I couldn't help it, ha ha ha . . .
Date: 2005-03-13 09:48 pm (UTC)Americans who hate the French (particularly since most of us have never met a French person) are terribly ignorant.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-13 05:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-13 11:11 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-13 11:16 am (UTC)