The 2005 bicentenary of the Pere Lachaise cemetery caused an extraordinary phenomenona worthy of an Edgar Allan Poe tale. The mystery discovered by Parisian keepers was the damage done to Victor Noir’s recumbent statue, more precisely of the lips and semi-erect penis of the lifelike sculpture.
Victor Noir (1848-1870, like Napoleon III’s reign), was a handsome journalist. Because of his work in La Marseillaise, an anti-Bonapartist newspaper, he was killed by one of Napoleon’s nephews a couple of months before the fall of the Second Empire.
During his short life, Victor Noir acted like “Bel-Ami,” using his beauty to enter journalism. Unfortunately, he had less chance than the character from Maupassant, since he was killed while he asked Pierre Bonaparte for a duel against his editor.
Dalou’s sculpture so reproduces Victor Noir’s beauty and elegance that women still come to Pere Lachaise to secretly kiss and touch it (or even climb upon it, in the case of American burlesque star Dita von Teese). Consequently, the bronze shines in the aforementionned places, whereas the whole work should be oxidized.
The socialist and not particularly dandy-friendly municipality has nonetheless decided to protect Victor Noir’s tomb with fences and these awkward words: “Toute degradation par graffitis, frottements indecents ou autre moyen est passible de poursuites.” — FRANCOIS-XAVIER D’ARBONNEAU DE LA BACHELLERIE