Monument aux morts de Givet
War memorial 1914-18 is located on Place Méhul, it is composed of a helmeted Marianne holding a sword. In the back, a rooster slaying the German hydra.
The monument was inaugurated on July 15, 1925.
A few words about the rooster located at the back of the monument…
Realized after the Great War, it is not surprising that at the time of the 1940 invasion and the occupation that followed, the Germans wanted to seize it and suppress it.
To participate in the design of some cannon, it was first of all the bronze statue of Méhul, also at the time on the place Méhul, which disappeared first.
Then the rooster, but in another way:
The mayor at the time, Roger Declef, conceived the plan to hide it.
He spoke to Mario Biadatti, whom he often met at the town hall: This one, in fact, resisting before his time, had come to get food vouchers for the French soldiers who had escaped from the camps in Germany.
Charged with the mission of unbolting the rooster, Mario Biadatti dismantled the rooster, hid it in a bag and transported it to n°13 rue d'Estrée (today rue Flayelle) to Gabriel Declef, court clerk and father of the first magistrate.
The rooster then disappeared into the yard… that was where the manure was!
In September 1944, the very morning of the Liberation, he dug him up and took him to the town hall.
All that remained then was to put it back in place on the monument.
This is how the famous rooster on the monument to the dead in Givet was saved.
To discover nearby
Centre ville historique de Givet
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