Lady Liberty: The Sovereignty Goddess of the USA Part 1

But She had existed before, in the myths, legends, ideologies and hopes of other people and other fledgling nations. In some She was genuinely a divine force, not merely a figurehead but an actual Pagan Goddess.

We trip those words together off our tongue - the statue of Liberty - without often pausing to examine precisely what we just said. It is a statue. And the statue depicts a Lady named Liberty. So who was/is Liberty?

The majority of Americans might answer that Liberty is a concept; an intangible idea described metaphorically as a woman lighting the way forward. For them the question should be 'what is liberty?', not 'who?'

But they are neither historians nor Pagans, nor the mind that conceived of the statue, nor the artist who created it.  For them, the statue is Libertas, a Goddess whose antiquity reaches back to ancient Rome, and for whom Liberty is just Her name translated into English, still attached to the ideals that She once governed and inspired.

The fact was that neither man particularly had America in mind at this point. Their colossal statue was going to stand in France. It was meant to be a slap in the face to their own dictator.

Unfortunately for them, Napoleon III's administration was wise to precisely what Libertas represented - historically AND contemporary - and refused to give them planning permission to erect it as a permanent monument there. Laboulaye was hoping that the French people would force the issue, but in the generations after the Terror, the people had lost the taste for more revolution.

But Laboulaye's mind was aflame with this idea and he was determined to see his Libertas statue made. Of course there were politics involved.

Iconoclasm - the act of tearing down or re-purposing art to make a point - had been a huge feature of the French Revolution. Statues of monarchs, erected in the first place to demonstrate the dominance of those rulers, were toppled by sheer manpower. Crowds of people with ropes utterly determined to make the icon go away.

An original statue of Libertas, quite crudely crafted out of clay, was set up during the Terror upon the pedestal left by a pulled down regal monument. It stood in the Place de la Révolution, overlooking the guillotine, inspiring Madame Roland (en route to her own execution) to utter her famous words, 'O Liberté, que de crimes on commet en ton nom!' (Oh Liberty, what crimes are committed in thy name!)

As the unnamed Goddess of Reason, Libertas was used in the reconsecration of Notre Dame. Previously devoted to Mother Mary, that famous Parisian cathedral became the scene of a ceremony transferring the building's allegiance to Reason. A clay statue was placed there in the chancel, where once Mary had been.

Elsewhere in the country, portable versions - not unlike scarecrows in construction, though not so ragged - were taken from village to village, town to town, in each place being used to reconsecrate the churches and shrines to Libertas. Though here She was alternatively called Marianne or Reason.

There's an argument to be made that Marianne was a lovely sleight of hand by people only outwardly denouncing their Catholicism. After all, Marion/Marianne is only another name for Mary. Nevertheless, those carrying the icon thought they were doing it for Libertas, and an ideological icon, not a Goddess, at that. 

Then there was the canvas art, like the ones below, which all depict Libertas, either directly, or as Reason or Marianne. She's still being used in this way today in France, appealing to the hearts, minds and passions of the ordinary French people.

From those we know that the Suez Statue of Libertas was envisaged as wearing a toga and holding aloft a light. She would double as a lighthouse (as She did in the earliest decades of Her tenure in New York Harbor). But Egypt's Libertas statue fell through.

There are two versions explaining why:

The first is that Egypt didn't have the money to pay for it. There's plenty of evidence for this to be the case, as Egypt was embroiled in a series of wars at the time, which proved costly enough to bring the country to the point of bankruptcy. Its ruler, Isma'il Pasha, ended up selling Egypt's shares in the Suez Canal to the British, in order to raise enough funds to keep the nation solvent.

The second is that Isma'il Pasha visited Britain in 1869 and he was told precisely who Libertas was and what She represented. The British had no love for Libertas. They were afraid their own common people would have a revolution! But they'd also received most of the aristocratic refugees from France during the Terror, so heard first-hand the stories about that icon.

Isma'il Pasha was told that Libertas was a Goddess who presided over rivers of blood. He turned down Her statue, because he didn't want those deaths to be Egyptian.

Laboulaye rushed back to Egypt with compromises. He would make Libertas an Egyptian lady. He'd scrap the toga in favor of an outfit worn by the Egyptian working classes.  No. Laboulaye suggested that it could be a statue of Isis instead. Pasha wasn't fooled. The Frenchman might call his statue Isis all he liked, but what would turn up to be constructed alongside his canal would be Libertas.

Despondent after finally admitting failure, Laboulaye went home. It seemed his colossal Libertas idea was sunk.

By now, Napoleon's administration had gone in the carnage of the Franco-Prussian War and in its place was the Third Republic, which was much more open to the idea of Libertas statues. They went for it, and the Americans couldn't exactly turn it down, when it was a gift.

They wanted to. Deputations of vicars and priests besieged House representatives about the undesirability of a Pagan Goddess on US soil.  J.P. Morgan led a consortium of wealthy and corporate classes, lobbying with the message that the Statue of Liberty would inspire unrest amongst American lower classes.

Questions were asked in Congress, but the conclusion was soon reached that turning Liberty down would be political poison. It would severely harm diplomatic relations with France. The US Ambassador to France Levi Parsons Morton was directed to formally accept the present of one colossal Statue of Liberty, which he did so on July 4th, 1884.

Phase two of the American resistance would delay progress on the statue immensely. Morgan et al hoped indefinitely.

While the Statue of Liberty itself was being paid for via public subscription from the people of France, the USA would have to fund its pedestal. Bartholdi wanted one, as Liberty's aspect on Bedloe Island (now renamed Liberty Island) would allow for a better view of Her from the harbor, if only She was further elevated.

It was widely anticipated that the upper echelons of US society would stump up the cash. But J.P. Morgan and chums had already stated their position on the subject. No, no, and again no. The 1% weren't interested in Libertas nor anything She stood for.

That other great source of fund-raising in America - collections amongst church congregations - was also out. Their clerics were adamant in their outrage against Pagan Goddesses. Liberty was preached against as if She was Satan Himself.

Faced with potential diplomatic embarrassment - the US having to tell France that they were too strapped for money to accept their gift - a governmental committee was set up to find ways to elicit donations towards the pedestal.

It found an ally in Joseph Pulitzer, the American journalist whose name would later be immortalized in the Pulitzer Prize for outstanding journalism. He wrote dozens of widely read editorials, which helped turn enough public sentiment towards the construction that the pedestal could be built.

Ordinary Americans (the 99% if you like) were responsible for funding Liberty, as was right and proper given her allegorical history.

Meanwhile, the French public were watching the Statue of Liberty being built in Paris. With the vision in front of them, funded from their own collective pockets, there was a surge of enthusiasm for the project. The authorities were suddenly swamped with requests to keep Libertas's statue in France.

But the Third Republic government couldn't do that. It had already been offered to the USA. Withdrawing it would cause diplomatic offense.

In short, both US and French governments would have secretly breathed a huge sigh of relief, if the Statue of Liberty could stay in Paris. But neither could mention it to the other for fear of harming international relations!

Libertas was undoubtedly a deity (whom we'll come back to in the final part of this trilogy), while the Gallic heart of the French would have seen the ancient Goddess of Sovereignty in Marianne.

Discover more about Her, and how Her aspect transferred to Lady Liberty for the USA, in part two.