What monument stands at the center of the Place de la Bastille?

What monument stands at the center of the Place de la Bastille? The July Column stands there.

The July Column, or Colonne de Juillet, is a 47-metre monument built between 1835 and 1840. It commemorates the July Revolution of 1830, when three days of insurrection—later called the Trois Glorieuses—overthrew King Charles X and brought Louis-Philippe to power.

The monument is often mistaken for a memorial to the storming of the Bastille in 1789. An earlier plan did envision a monument celebrating that event, and a foundation stone was laid in 1792, but the project was never completed. The existing column instead honors the later revolution and its victims.

Architect Jean-Antoine Alavoine designed it, while Joseph-Louis Duc completed its construction. At the summit is Augustin Dumont’s gilded Génie de la Liberté, or Spirit of Freedom, holding a torch and broken chains. The old fortress itself had been demolished by 1790, leaving the column as the square’s defining landmark.