The July Column which now stands in the centre of the Place de la Bastille was a long time in the planning. The foundation-stone of a column, which was to sit atop a scale model of the fortress, had been laid on 14 July 1792, but the Convention abandoned the project. Jacques-Louis David, foreshadowing the Egyptophilia of Napoleon's elephant, built a large plaster fountain in 1793 in the form of the goddess Isis, but this was a transitory phenomenon. Not until Louis-Philippe had taken power, in 1830, was it decided to erect a monument not only to 1789 but also to the July Days that had brought him to power. For the revolutionary Faubourg this was a dubious tribute; to quote Jean-Paul Blais:

Hugo, for his part, was to describe the column as ‘le monument manqué d'une révolution avortée’/ ‘the failed monument of an abortive revolution’, all but disregarding its homage to 1789 and perceiving it, with a measure of accuracy, as a eulogy to the Orleanist monarchy. Louis-Philippe laid the foundation stone on 28 July 1831, though the monument was not to be completed for nine years. Its most striking feature is the figure of liberty that crowns it, often known as ‘Le Génie de la Bastille’, which has given its name to a contemporary association for the propagation of artistic activity in the quartier. The ‘Génie’, four metres high (the column measures just over forty-six), was the work of Auguste Dumont, and depicts a clearly male figure holding broken chains in one hand and the torch of freedom in the other. The female republican icon Marianne might have been thought a better choice, but Adolphe Thiers, doyen of conservative republicanism for many years and Prime Minister at the time the monument was being planned, was determined to avoid so potentially incendiary a symbol.