#Luis Ernesto Cordier

[sheliach]

 Plaza  San Martín  Le Doute (Spanish: La Duda, English: The Doubt), designed by French artist Louis Henri Cordier, was inaugurated in Plaza General San Martín in 1906. The Carrara marble statue depicts a young believer, with open bible, being questioned by an older man. Plaza San Martín, bounded by Calle Maipu, Avenida Sata Fe, Avenida Libertador, and Avenida Leandro Alem, was named after General José de San Martín in 1878, upon the hundredth anniversary of his birth and sixteen years later after Louis-Joseph Daumas' monument to him was placed in the park. The current landscape is a product of the designs of British architect Edward Taylor and Argentine architect José Canale in 1883 and French urbanist Charles Thays in 1889. The plaza's long history dates back to Spanish colonial times, where a succession of colonial governors had their official residences built on the site. In 1713, the land was sold to the British South Sea Company who operated their slave trade out of a former governor's mansion. The area earned the name Campo de la Gloria (The Field of Glory) after General John Whitelocke's failed in Britain's second attempt to conquer Buenos Aires here in 1807. General San Martín established barracks for his Regimiento de Granaderos a Caballo (Regiment of Mounted Grenadiers) in the plaza starting in 1812, and in 1813 a resolution abolishing slavery led to the shuttering of slave quarters. In the 1900's, the plaza became the preferred surroundings for some of Argetina's wealthiest landowners.