History
A first project for a commemorative column, one that would commemorate the Fall of the Bastille, had been envisaged in 1792, and a foundation stone was laid, 14 July 1792; the project never got further than that. The circular basin in which its socle stands was realised during the Empire as part of the Elephant of the Bastille, a fountain with an elephant in its centre. The elephant was completed to designs by Percier and Fontaine in semi-permanent stucco, but the permanent bronze sculpture was never commissioned due to pinched finances in the latter days of the Empire. Its low base has been retained to support the socle of the column.
In the foundation, a columbarium was arranged to receive the remains of 615 victims of the July Revolution. A further 200 victims of the Revolution of 1848 were later interred in the space; the throne of Charles X was symbolically burned in the square, February 1848.
The column was the scene of the last desperate stand of the Communards in 1871.
Read more about this topic: July Column
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We know only a single science, the science of history. One can look at history from two sides and divide it into the history of nature and the history of men. However, the two sides are not to be divided off; as long as men exist the history of nature and the history of men are mutually conditioned.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)
“The history of the world is none other than the progress of the consciousness of freedom.”
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)