Fifty years later, a statue at Pierrefonds Castle finds its fingers, stolen by a 9-year-old Canadian

He ended up, if we dare say, by biting his fingers. In 2023, around fifty years after stealing the index and middle fingers belonging to a 19th century statue^e century from the Château de Pierrefonds, in the Oise, a Canadian sent them back to France. In September, they were reassembled by their owner’s hand.

“This gentleman, now around sixty years old, found the two fingers that had fallen at the foot of the statue during a visit to the castle and stole them”explains to France 3 the communications service of the former fortress of the Counts of Valois, restored and remodeled under Napoleon III by Eugène Viollet-le-Duc.

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A restoration project

At the time, the visitor was 9 years old. He preferred to remain anonymous, but the castle’s communications service specifies Parisian have his address to be able to respond to him and promises not to hit him on the wrist. In the Oise monument, visited by 180,000 tourists last year, the gesture of the former Canadian tourist was received with enthusiasm.

The fingers belong to one of the neo-Gothic statues made according to the drawings of Viollet-le-Duc. Archbishop Turpin, the legendary companion of Charlemagne and Roland de Roncesvaux, in the Song of Rolandsits among the fifteen statues in the Salle des Preuses, which has been the subject of restoration for two years by the Center of National Monuments. Its reopening is planned for March 2027.

Speaking to France 3, sculptor and restorer Grégoire Teil explained that the fingers could be glued back together using glue and fiberglass. The archbishop’s hand, however, remains crippled. Two other fingers from Turpin’s hand are still missing, and this time the Canadian tourist has nothing to do with it.