The story of this place
Carved into a cliff face and completed in 1821, the Lion of Lucerne commemorates the Swiss Guards massacred defending King Louis XVI at the Tuileries Palace during the French Revolution's storming of 10 August 1792. Some 760 guards died. Designed by Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, the ten-metre relief shows a mortally wounded lion, a broken spear in its side, its paw shielding a shield of the French monarchy. Mark Twain, visiting in the 1870s, called it 'the most mournful and moving piece of stone in the world,' a description still quoted at the site today.