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# Bourdelle’s “Hannibal’s First Victory” in Montauban and the Eagle in Flaubert’s “Salammbô”
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/vo-frantsuzskom-montobane-est-muzei-engra-burdelia-dvukh-samykh-izvestnykh-urozhentsev-etogo-goroda/
- Published: 2024-08-13T06:32:16.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-02T18:50:46.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Art, Books, Museums, People

In French Montauban there is an Ingres-Bourdelle Museum, named for the city's two most famous sons. For a hundred and fifty years the museum bore only the name of Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, whose collection formed the basis of its holdings; now Bourdelle, the second distinguished native of these parts, has been given an entire floor.

One unusual device is striking: in one of the halls two versions of Antoine Bourdelle's sculpture "Hannibal's First Victory" stand side by side. Hannibal, still a child, kills an eagle.

It is all clear! - the viewer may say - here is the future savage, the enemy of Rome, already distinguished in childhood by cruelty and wicked deeds.

It must be explained that the episode of the killing of the eagle appears in Gustave Flaubert's novel "Salammbô". Critics did not greet the work unanimously: despite its recognition as one of the ingenious creations of European literature, many remained dissatisfied with Flaubert's approach and his occasionally liberal interpretations of historical events. In particular, indignation was voiced over the killing of the eagle. Flaubert himself writes of this as follows:

"Why do you consider his childhood improbable in my book? Because he kills an eagle? A wonder of wonders in a country full of eagles! Had the action taken place in Gaul, I would have taken an owl, a wolf or a fox. But you, as a Frenchman, are accustomed, without noticing it, to regard the eagle as a noble bird and rather a symbol than a living creature. Eagles nevertheless do exist."