The statues in the Cour Napoléon are often neglected in favor of what is inside the Louvre itself. I spent some considerable time checking out the number of writers represented here, and over a third are in fact men of letters. As I was examining the printouts I'd made of the location of my subjects, a French guy having his lunch on some steps opposite the Aile en retour Turgot (or Turgot side wing if you prefer) asked me if I needed any assistance. I told him what I was doing, but he just asked me if I'd seen the Pyramid: I suppose he's just used to seeing tourists standing in front of the Pyramid and grinning happily as their partner takes a shot of them.
The Turgot side wing statues consist entirely of authors:
La Fontaine (1621–95), by Jean Louis Jaley.
Blaise Pascal (1623–62), by François Lanno.
Moliére (pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Poquelin) (1622–73), by Bernard Gabriel Seure the elder.
Boileau (1623–1711), by Charles Émile Marie Seure junior.
Fénelon (1651–1715), by Jean–Marie Bonnassieux.
Pierre Corneille (1606–84), by Phillippe Lemaire.
And now the Turgot wing itself:
Rabelais (c. 1494–1553), by Louis Elias Robert.
Malherbe (1555–1628), by Jean Jules Allasseur.
Pierre Abélard (1079–1142), by Pierre Jules Cavelier. (One of his Latin names, 'Abailard', is given here.
Jean Froissart (c. 1337–c. 1410), by Phillippe Lemaire.
Jean de La Bruyère (1645–96), by Jospeph Lescorné.
Jean Racine (1639–99), by François Michel Pascal.
Voltaire (or Jean–Marie Arouet) (1694–1778), by Antoine Desboeuf. Jean Marie Bonnassieux refused this commission because he was a Catholic sculptor. Now, this is I think the only statue surrounding the Louvre which is protected in this way.
Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), by Louis Desprez.
And in the Rotonde Beauvais:
André–Marie Chenier (1762–94), by Antonin Auguste Préaux.
Finally, the Aile Daru:
René Descartes (1596–1650), by Gabriel Joseph Garraud.
Richelieu (1585–1642), by Jean Auguste Barre.
The Turgot side wing statues consist entirely of authors:
La Rochefoucauld (1613–80), by Noël Jules Girard
And now the Turgot wing itself:
Grégoire de Tours (c. 540–94), by Jean Esprit Marcell.
Jean–Jacques Rousseau (1712–78), by Eugène Farochon.
Montesquieu, by Nanteuil.
And now we move along to the Aile Colbert, or Colbert wing:
St Bernard (1090–1153), by François Jouffory.
And in the Rotonde Beauvais:
Condorcet by Pierre Loison.
Only one writer too in the Aile Henry IV:
Phillippe de Comminge (c. 1447–1511), by Eugène Lesquesne.
Moving to the Aile Henri II:
Jean–François Regnard (1655–1709), by Théodore Gruyère.
Finally, the Aile Daru:
Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (1533–92), by Jean François Soitoux.
Twenty-seven in all. Not a bad total.
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