The Design
The monument was designed by the Royal Architect, Charles Van der Straeten, at the behest of William I. Inspiration was provided by the engineer Jean-Baptiste Vifquain, who conceived of it as a symbol of the Allied victory, rather than as pertaining to a single individual. The shape consciously recapitulates that of the tumulus of the Belgae, whom Julius Caesar had singled out as the bravest of the Gallic tribes.
Read more about this topic: Lion's Mound
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“For I choose that my remembrances of him should be pleasing, affecting, religious. I will love him as a glorified friend, after the free way of friendship, and not pay him a stiff sign of respect, as men do to those whom they fear. A passage read from his discourses, a moving provocation to works like his, any act or meeting which tends to awaken a pure thought, a flow of love, an original design of virtue, I call a worthy, a true commemoration.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)