Godebski used the traditional monumental formula in the spirit of 19th-century academism: a standing figure of the general in uniform on a high plinth, the plinth is decorated with four bas-reliefs depicting important episodes in the life of the commander and diplomat: the capture of the Algerian fortress of Constantine in 1837, the battle against the Arabs, the speech at the French National Assembly in 1849, and the audience with Tsar Alexander II. This is a forgotten, and certainly one of the most outstanding, works by an active artist in France, revealing his talent as a sculptor and his ability to win commissions. General Le Flô, born in Lesneven, was the French ambassador to St Petersburg from 1871 to 1879, and Godebski met him there. The artist, having learned of the general's death, invoking this acquaintance, immediately offered his services to the Lesneven town council and easily obtained permission to realise the sculpture for a substantial fee of 13,357 francs. Godebski made the plaster model in his atelier in Carrara. Unveiled almost exactly at the same time as the Adam Mickiewicz monument in Warsaw, the Breton monument in Godebski's oeuvre is an artistically more momentous achievement. Godebski, as in the much earlier monument to the cellist Adrien-Franҫois Servais in Belgium, made excellent use of his sense of realism in the figure of Le Flô, with a keen eye for the details of uniform, weapons and boots. The general's proud face is one of the best portraits in Polish sculpture of the late 19th century, while the marble reliefs of the pedestal, unfortunately severely damaged by damp, are unusual in his work.