July Column

The July Column on Place de la Bastille in Paris's 11th arrondissement marks the Trois Glorieuses, the three July days of 1830 that toppled Charles X and put the "citizen king" Louis-Philippe on the throne. The 47-metre green-patinated bronze shaft was begun in 1831 and inaugurated in 1840; on its dome perches Auguste Dumont's gilded Genius of Liberty, a winged figure with broken chains and torch. Inside the crypt below lie 504 victims of the July Revolution and, later, those of February 1848, forming a chain of anti-monarchist memory. The column is now the endpoint of countless demonstrations, from union marches to Gay Pride.