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Almost 100 years later, 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.

During the evening, talk turned to the close historic ties and love of liberty the two nations shared. Laboulaye noted there was "a genuine flow of sympathy" between the two nations, and called France and America "the two sisters."

As he continued speaking, 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.

"To the sculptor form is everything and is nothing. It is nothing without the spirit - with the idea it is everything."


- Victor Hugo, May 13, 1885



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