At some point after 1697, Le Gros was employed by Emmanuel-Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne, cardinal de Bouillon to create the dynastic monument for his family to be erected in a funerary chapel in Cluny Abbey, of which the cardinal was the abbot.
Apart from being a compatriot, Bouillon might have known the sculptor through the Jesuits as he habitually lived as their guest in the Jesuit novitiate at Sant'Andrea al Quirinale.
Le Gros's work was completed by 1707 and sent to Cluny, where it arrived in 1709.
He worked on this project in as much a French manner as he ever would and invented a spectacular sepulchral monument, at once continuing in the French baroque tradition as well as opening up new formal and iconographic avenues.

The chapel was meant to receive several family members, including the cardinal himself, but first and foremost his parents, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon and Éléonor de Bergh, Duchesse de Bouillon.
Depicted as the main characters in the centre of the monument their grouping and gestures allude to the fact that Éléonor was instrumental in converting her husband to catholicism.
Another important component was the heart of the duke's brother, the national hero Turenne, enclosed in a heart shaped container of gilded silver and carried towards heaven by a youthful angel who rises from a heraldic tower of white marble which links the family name La Tour to the biblical tower of David.
Together with some other sculptures outside the chapel (not planned to be made by Le Gros and, in fact, never executed), the iconographic message was the postulation of a royal rank and sovereignty of the family dating back to the 9th century, the same message Cardinal de Bouillon tried to support by commissioning a written history of his ancestry from the historiographer Étienne Baluze, published in 1708 and containing an engraving of the envisaged funeral chapel with an idealised view of Le Gros's monument.

None of this highly original concept influenced the development of monumental funerary sculpture.
Apart from a thorough inspection by royal officials to determine whether they expressed any pretentious dynastic claims, the sculptures were not even unpacked in Cluny due to the fact that Cardinal de Bouillon so completely fell out with his cousin, the Sun King, that he was declared an enemy of the state and all construction stopped.
Le Gros' marbles and bronzes were stored, undisturbed in their sealed crates, for nearly 80 years.
In the aftermath of the French Revolution they were in danger of being sold as stone material together with Cluny abbey but saved by Alexandre Lenoir who wanted them for his Musée des monuments français.

The animated marble figures of the Duke and Duchess de Bouillon together with the angel (minus Turenne's heart) and a finely detailed relief showing the duke as a battle hero never made it to Paris and are today installed at the Hôtel-Dieu in Cluny.
A fragment of the heraldic tower is kept in the granary of the abbey.
At some point after 1697, Le Gros was employed by Emmanuel-Théodose de La Tour d'Auvergne, cardinal de Bouillon to create the dynastic monument for his family to be erected in a funerary chapel in Cluny Abbey, of which the cardinal was the abbot. Apart from being a compatriot, Bouillon might have known the sculptor through the Jesuits as he habitually lived as their guest in the Jesuit novitiate at Sant'Andrea al Quirinale. Le Gros's work was completed by 1707 and sent to Cluny, where it arrived in 1709. He worked on this project in as much a French manner as he ever would and invented a spectacular sepulchral monument, at once continuing in the French baroque tradition as well as opening up new formal and iconographic avenues.
The chapel was meant to receive several family members, including the cardinal himself, but first and foremost his parents, Frédéric Maurice de La Tour d'Auvergne, Duc de Bouillon and Éléonor de Bergh, Duchesse de Bouillon. Depicted as the main characters in the centre of the monument their grouping and gestures allude to the fact that Éléonor was instrumental in converting her husband to catholicism. Another important component was the heart of the duke's brother, the national hero Turenne, enclosed in a heart shaped container of gilded silver and carried towards heaven by a youthful angel who rises from a heraldic tower of white marble which links the family name La Tour to the biblical tower of David. Together with some other sculptures outside the chapel (not planned to be made by Le Gros and, in fact, never executed), the iconographic message was the postulation of a royal rank and sovereignty of the family dating back to the 9th century, the same message Cardinal de Bouillon tried to support by commissioning a written history of his ancestry from the historiographer Étienne Baluze, published in 1708 and containing an engraving of the envisaged funeral chapel with an idealised view of Le Gros's monument.
None of this highly original concept influenced the development of monumental funerary sculpture. Apart from a thorough inspection by royal officials to determine whether they expressed any pretentious dynastic claims, the sculptures were not even unpacked in Cluny due to the fact that Cardinal de Bouillon so completely fell out with his cousin, the Sun King, that he was declared an enemy of the state and all construction stopped. Le Gros' marbles and bronzes were stored, undisturbed in their sealed crates, for nearly 80 years. In the aftermath of the French Revolution they were in danger of being sold as stone material together with Cluny abbey but saved by Alexandre Lenoir who wanted them for his Musée des monuments français.
The animated marble figures of the Duke and Duchess de Bouillon together with the angel (minus Turenne's heart) and a finely detailed relief showing the duke as a battle hero never made it to Paris and are today installed at the Hôtel-Dieu in Cluny. A fragment of the heraldic tower is kept in the granary of the abbey.
Pierre Le Gros the Younger