The Pont d’Alma has an interesting sculpture.
At first the bridge was decorated with four statues: there was a Grenadier, a
Zouave,
a Chasseur and an Artilleur. The Zouave became
the unofficial scale by which level of the Seine was measured. When his feet
were in
the water the Seine was said to be at flood
stage. When the water reaches his ankles the river is too high for some boats,
at his thighs
the
Seine is too high for all boat traffic. The water reached his shoulders during
the great flood of 1910. When the bridge
was rebuilt in 1974 Zouave was reinstalled on
the pillar of the bridge. His new position faced him upstream and he was
at a higher level than before, thus he gets a
bath less often. The last time he had his feet in the water was in 2010.
Until now:
