This bronze sculpture is located in Tréguier's Place du Martray just by the cathedral. Renan was born in Tréguier in 1823 and died in Paris in 1892. He was a linguist, philosopher and writer, The sculpture is by Jean Boucher and was executed in 1903. Boucher depicts Renan sitting on a bench and behind the bench is a depiction of Pallas Athene, the Greek Goddess of Wisdom. Renan was the author of the enormously popular "Vie de Jésus" ("Life of Jesus") but the book's controversial assertions that the life of Jesus should be written like the life of any historic person, and that the Bible could and should be subject to the same critical scrutiny as other historical documents caused considerable controversy and enraged many Catholics. Thus the placing of Boucher's statue of Renan on Tréguier's cathedral square was interpreted as a challenge to Catholicism, and led to widespread protests, especially because the site was normally used for the temporary pulpit erected at the traditional Catholic festival of the "Pardon of Saint Yves". Athene's gesture of raising her arm to crown Renan was taken as a deliberate challenge to the cathedral. The erection of this statue and the surrounding controversy led to the construction of the "Calvaire de Réparation" a "work of protest" designed by Yves Hernot
