The Zouave of the Pont de l'Alma: what it measures, where it comes from, and where to see it

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The Zouave is the soldier statue by Georges Diebolt standing on the pier of the Pont de l'Alma, facing upstream, on the right bank side: sole survivor of the four soldiers of the 1856 bridge, it has served as a popular gauge of Seine floods since the 1910 flood, when the water rose to its shoulders.

Where the Zouave comes from

It comes from the first Pont de l'Alma, a stone bridge with three arches, built from 1854 to 1856 under Napoleon III and named after the victory at the Alma, in Crimea. The bridge then carried four soldiers: the Grenadier and the Zouave by Georges Diebolt on the upstream side, the Artilleur and the Chasseur à pied by Auguste Arnaud on the downstream side.

That bridge was no longer suited to car traffic. It was replaced between 1969 and 1973 by the steel structure you cross today (142 m long, 42 m wide, a single pier). Only the Zouave was reinstalled on site. The other three went elsewhere: the Grenadier to Dijon, the Artilleur to La Fère, in the Aisne, and the Chasseur à pied to the edge of the A4 motorway, between Paris and Vincennes.

Why people watch it during floods

Because it gives an immediate sense of the water level, without any numbers. The statue is about 5.20 m tall, and each flood is partly told on its body: in January 1910, the strongest flood of the 20th century, the water reached its shoulders; in June 2016, it rose to mid-thigh.

A detail we like to remind people of: the Zouave is not an official scale. The reference measurement is taken at the Austerlitz scale, where the Seine reached 8.62 m in 1910. The Zouave, for its part, is the gauge everyone understands.

Where to see it

It stands on the bridge pier, facing upstream (towards the Pont des Invalides), on the right bank side. It is therefore best viewed head-on from upstream and from the riverbanks, rather than from the bridge deck. On the left bank side, where we are, the bridge starts from Place de la Résistance, between Quai d'Orsay and Quai Branly.

We recommend it at the end of a stroll along the left bank quays: the Parc Rives de Seine promenade starts right at the Pont de l'Alma, and if the Seine is high in winter, it is the first place we send you to see what a flood looks like.

The flame, on the other side

On the right bank, Place de l'Alma, stands a replica of the flame of the Statue of Liberty, offered in 1987 by the International Herald Tribune as a sign of Franco-American friendship. Since 1997, it has been best known as a place of tribute to Princess Diana, who died in the Alma tunnel, just below. Crossing the bridge to see it takes a few minutes; the Zouave, for its part, is best seen by staying at the water's edge.