The adventure of the Statue of Liberty began on 21 April 1865, in France, in Glatigny, a town in the Moselle department, twelve kilometers north-east of Metz.
On this day there was a meeting of Republicans in love with the United States who wished to celebrate the abolition of slavery in that country.
History made them celebrate, alas, the memory of the American President Lincoln who had just been assassinated, six days before.
During this dinner the organizer of the meeting, the politician Édouard de Laboulaye, professor at the Collège de France, made a speech of a rare verve which subjugated the audience, during which he proposed the idea of the construction of a gigantic statue to offer to the Americans to seal the friendship between the two countries.
In the audience was the Alsatian sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, a friend of Laboulaye, who was already working on such a statue to decorate the entrance to the Suez Canal. Its purpose was to magnify the French genius. Bartholdi was then proposed to change the destination of his statue, which he accepted. It must be said that the idea of competing with the ancient lighthouse of Alexandria by a modern-day wonder was rather tempting.