the informed visitor to Paris

If you are wandering around Paris this summer, here is a little piece of useless information that you may like to throw into a conversation and use to impress your travelling buddies. 

The story goes that statues of well known figures on horseback can tell you how that person died.  If the horse is rearing up on its back legs, then the horseman died in battle; if the horse has one leg raised then the rider succumbed to battle wounds and if the horse is standing firmly on all four feet then the one in the saddle passed quietly in his bed.

Unfortunately, verification of history books reveals that the information is largely unfounded, but it is a little urban legend that I have always found amusing; maybe revealing more about the rider's desire for glory than his fearlessness at war!