Monument aux morts de la guerre 1914-1918, situé devant la mairie et les écoles, located in Donnezac (Gironde), is a modern edifice built in the 19th-20th centuries. The monument is currently closed to visitors.
In Donnezac, a striking bronze embodies the pain of a nation: "Le Soldat mourant" (The Dying Soldier) by Jules Déchin, cast by the Durenne workshops in 1920, is one of the most moving commemorative monuments in the Gironde.
In front of the town hall and schools in Donnezac, a small village in the north of the Gironde, stands a war memorial of rare sobriety and intensity. Far from the triumphal allegories that adorn so many squares in France, this memorial chooses the raw truth of sacrifice: a soldier in agony, frozen in his last bronze breath, placed on a stone altar table as a funeral offering to the collective memory. What makes this monument truly singular is the tension between its rural setting - a discreet village in the Blayais region, with its vineyards and gentle hills - and the emotional power of the sculpture. Its creator, Jules Déchin, did not seek to glorify the war, but to show its human cost. The soldier's posture, his body slumped but still imbued with an ultimate dignity, speaks to anyone who stops for a moment in front of it. The visit takes just a few minutes, but it makes a lasting impression. The institutional setting - with the town hall and schools in the background - reinforces the message: this is where the community has come together, generation after generation, to remember. The names engraved in the stone are a reminder that behind every war there are faces, families and absences. Photographers and sculpture enthusiasts will find this bronze a subject of exceptional formal richness. The grazing light at the end of the day reveals every detail of the modelling, giving the figure an almost theatrical presence. An essential stop-off for anyone exploring the heritage routes of the Haute-Gironde.
The monument is made up of two distinct but inseparable elements: a rectangular cut stone base reminiscent of an altar table, and a cast bronze statue on top. This arrangement - the body of the soldier lying or slumped on a stone altar - deliberately evokes the Christian symbolism of sacrifice and entombment, transposed into a republican and secular language. The figure of the "Dying Soldier", a work by Jules Déchin, is modelled in a realistic style tinged with gentle expressionism, typical of French commemorative sculpture of the early 20th century. The anatomy is precise, and the hairy uniform recognisable down to the smallest detail, but it is the expression on the face and the suppleness of the body that catch the eye: neither excessive pathos nor academic coldness, but a human truth captured in the ultimate moment. The bronze, with its patina from a century of weathering in the Gironde region, has acquired a green-grey tinge that adds to the gravity of the whole. Placed in front of the town hall and schools, the monument is part of the civic fabric of the village, in keeping with the republican model of placing the memory of the dead at the heart of community life. The engraved plaques bearing the names of the donnezacois soldiers who fell at the front complete the ensemble, transforming this work of art into a collective act of remembrance.
Monument aux morts de la guerre 1914-1918, situé devant la mairie et les écoles is located in Donnezac, Gironde department, Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, France.
Monument aux morts de la guerre 1914-1918, situé devant la mairie et les écoles dates back to a period built in the modern era (19th-20th century).
Monument aux morts de la guerre 1914-1918, situé devant la mairie et les écoles is currently closed to visitors.
