Pax, a monument to Aristide Briand, is to the left of the front gate of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the Quai d’Orsay. It is by Paul Landowski and was dedicated in 1937.
The central relief shows peace sheltering a family; the robed figures represent the nations of the world and the man in modern dress is, of course, Briand himself. The texts are quotations from Briand. The one on the bottom left says, “Des savants luttent chaque jour pour nous préserver de la tuberculose, du cancer. Et la guerre, l’horrible guerre serait le seul mal contre lequel l’humanité se déclarerait impuissante? Je ne veux pas le croire.”
Scientists struggle every day to protect us from tuberculosis and cancer. And war, horrible war would be the only evil against which humanity would declare itself powerless? I do not want to believe it.
And on the bottom right: “La France ne se diminue pas quand libre de toute visée impérialiste et ne servant que des idées de progrès et d’humanité, elle se dresse et dit à la face du monde: «Je vous déclare la paix».”
“France is not diminished when, free from all imperialist aims and serving only ideas of progress and humanity , she stands up and says in the face of the world: “I declare peace” .
Aristide Briand, who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic, received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize together with Gustav Stresemann of Germany for the Locarno Treaties. A 1927 proposal by Briand and United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg for a universal pact outlawing war led the following year to the Pact of Paris, the Kellogg–Briand Pact.
