“I did not think it was that heavy…” Louis Blanc, captain of the 1967 French champions Montauban, entered the history of French rugby by receiving the Bouclier de Brennus, just as surely as the “little” Leucate shield dived into the Mediterranean a few days ago. The buzz lasted no time at all: “It did indeed go for a trip to the bottom of the Mediterranean, but it was recovered a few seconds later by one of our players, who is particularly comfortable diving,” Sporting Club Leucate Corbières Méditerranée XV said in a statement, while noting in passing “a wonderful shop window” for the club.
“The finest trophy is the Bouclier de Brennus,” according to Fabien Galthié, who played his last club match by winning the 2003 final with Stade Français, French champions.
A shield born in 1892
The shield is the work of Brennus Ambiorix Crosnier, known as Charles Brennus, a master engraver before he became president of the SCUF, made from a drawing by baron Pierre de Coubertin, who refereed the first final of the French championship, in 1892, with Racing beating Stade Français 4-3…
Heavy, you say? The weight of history, and not only that. A few examples at random: Dimitri Szarzewski, the winning captain with Racing in 2016, lifted the “piece of wood” above his head as he arrived in the press area at the Camp Nou in Barcelona. Outcome: a hole in the false ceiling, the shield untouched. Kilos of history… If only it could talk.
It disappeared under the Occupation before turning up again out of an attic in Picardy in 1944: “We could not let the Germans melt it down and turn it into a shell casing,” Jean Lacouture wrote in “La légende du Brennus”.
The story goes that in 1998, after four seasons of Toulouse wins (1994, 95, 96, 97), the craftsmen found screws holding the patched-up piece of copper in place, an “I love Toulouse” sticker and, carved into the wood, “property of Stade Toulousain”… Legend?
Swimming pools, slip-and-slides and nights nobody talks about
There are the dozens of belly slides, the dips in the pools at the Parc des Princes and then the Stade de France, and those nights nobody talks about, tradition having it that the champions get the shield to themselves for the first few weeks after the title.
The one and only… and its offspring
The shield, the one and only, has had offspring. The original is carefully preserved, intact, historic; a “replica built to be abused” is handed over by two youngsters from the SCUF at the end of the final, and there are versions in Nationale, in Fédérale, in Régionale and abroad, in Senegal for instance.
Here is the proof in pictures: in Dakar, the Senegalese champions have lifted the Lion shield since 1994. A bronze lion’s head, jaws wide open, fixed on a wooden base where brass plates record the roll of honour season after season. Coubertin had nothing to do with it, but the spirit is the same: wood, metal and kilos of stories. Last to be served, the army club ASFA, who beat Diambars XV in the final at the end of July (11-10). The second division even has its own, the Baobab shield.
Offspring that sometimes live dangerously. Montauban, them again, know something about that: the Pro D2 shield lifted at Sapiac in June 2025 was stolen three months later, in the middle of an agricultural fair in Montbeton, where the club had entrusted it to the FDSEA of Tarn-et-Garonne. A gendarmerie investigation, an appeal for witnesses… nothing worked, and the trophy never resurfaced. USM had to wait until late December, and a trip to Racing 92, to receive a new shield. Between Leucate diving in and Montauban still looking for theirs, the “piece of wood” is clearly not done making headlines.
This year again, the Pro D2 shield won by RC Vannes is travelling, as it did in early July at La Baule. Let us hope it makes it home safely.
My night with the Brennus
And I cannot end this piece without sharing “my night with the Brennus”… September 2015: I was sent to drop it off at the Gare d’Austerlitz to Stade Français manager Alain Hélias, on his way to Aurillac and the opening round of the championship for the French champions. Walking up the platform, it did not feel that heavy to me. In stories.
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