A mob of men tried to topple Napoleon from the top of the Vendôme Column (1814)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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In 1814, taking advantage of the Allied occupying force, a mob of men and horses had attached a cable to the neck of the statue of Napoleon atop the Vendôme Column, but it had refused to budge - one woman quipped "If the Emperor is as solid on his throne as this statue is on its column, he's nowhere near descending the throne". After the Bourbon Restoration the statue was pulled down and melted down to provide the bronze for the recast equestrian statue of Henry IV on the Pont Neuf (as was bronze from sculptures on the Column of the Grande Armée at Boulogne-sur-Mer), though the statuette of Victory is still to be seen in the salon Napoléon of the Hôtel des Monnaies (which also contains a model of the column and a likeness of Napoleon's face copied from his death mask). A replacement statue of Napoléon, however, was erected by Louis-Philippe in modern dress (a tricorn hat, boots and a redingote), and a better, more augustly classicizing one by Louis-Napoléon (later Napoléon III).
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