The July Column, Place de la Bastille
The July Column stands at the centre of the Place de la Bastille. The Place is a square where the Bastille prison once stood until the French Revolution, and the famous 'storming of the Bastille' in 1789. The July Column or the Colonne de Juillet commemorates the events of the 1830 July Revolution.. At the top of the column is the Genie de la Liberte (Spirit of Freedom), a gilded bronze sculpture made by Augustin Dumont in 1836. It is an allegorical statue which depicts Liberty with male features, as a winged genius, brandishing a torch in one hand and broken chains in the other, while leaping into the air off one foot.