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12 THE CAPITOL DOME Latrobe instead demanded one arm close in to her body, rest- ing in her lap, and one arm raised, resting "on a Wig block, or capped stick (which is as much more honorable than a Wig block as the cap is more honorable than the Wig.) for ought I care." (This is essentially the torso arrangement shown in Latrobe's own sketch.) In this letter Latrobe pondered reduc- ing Liberty to 7'0" in height. Though often beset by his own scathing and sardonic wit, Latrobe maintained exactly the right balance of allegorical propriety he thought proper for the chamber, and continued to steer Franzoni in the design of the Liberty. 14 On 1 September 1807, Lenthall's men took down the scaffolding around the Speaker's Chair, revealing two fin- ished columns and the sitting Statue of Liber t y (f ig. 17). Lat robe wrote Jefferson later that day: "the figure of Liberty, which, tho' only a Model, is an excellent work and does Franzoni infinite credit." She was in service from that day. 15 Almost two months later, in a report on the south wing of the Capitol solicited by the editor of DC's premier newspa- per of record, the National Intelligencer, Latrobe described the complete tableau of the House chamber: In the course of her design in the first nine months of 1807, Liberty's eagle shifted from her right side to her left (from east to west), and her pole and liberty cap were replaced with a more relaxed arrangement with a cap and constitution. Latrobe described the scene at entry and the viewer understands at once that the architecture and the sculp- ture are integral and essential to the sequence: "One large ample curtain is suspended in the space between the col- umns opposite the entrance, and being drawn in easy folds to each pilastre, discloses the statue of Liber ty. The effect of this curtain of the statue and of the Speaker's chair Fig. 15. An example of a fashionable lady: Madame Raymond de Verninac (1799), by Jacques-Louis David LOUVRE, PARIS Between the two columns oppo- site to the entrance, behind the Speaker 's Chair, sits on a pedestal a colossal figure of liberty. The present figure is only a plaister model hastily executed in three weeks by Mr. Franzoni, but has great merit. It is proposed to place a marble fig- ure of the same size in its room. . . . The figure, sitting, is 8'-6" in height. By her side stands the American eagle, supporting her left hand, in which is the cap of liberty, her right presents a scroll, the constitution of the United States. Her foot treads upon a reversed crown as a foot- stool and upon other emblems of monarchy and bondage. 16