Paris France - Colonne de Juillet  

Here, just for fun, is the green 'running man' sign that everywhere points to your closest avenue of escape. This is Margaret and my last day in Paris. We are going to walk behind past Notre Dame Cathedral to the Isle St. Louis. This is the one part of Paris where the streets are still narrow like they were during the middle ages. They have excellant ice cream in this section of Paris - here is where we got our cones.

These narrow streets are so very different that the wide avenues one associates with modern Paris. I liked this section a lot.

Now we are crossing a bridge over the Seine to start our walk to la Place de la Bastille which contains the Colonne de Juillet and is the former site of the Bastille fortress and prision.

Here are some scenes as we walk along the wide boulevard. Many stores close around noon and stay closed for a couple of hours. The French like long lunches I guess.

There are obscure reasons why I take certain pictures. Thee leaves (above) show how dry the summer season is - leaves are prematurely dropping off the trees. The final picture is a hand made card explaining the hours they are open.

The Colonne de Juillet, which celebrates France's Independence Day, dominates la Place de la Bastille. La Place de la Bastille stands in proximity to where the Bastille fortress stood. Built in 1369, its eight huge towers once loomed over Paris. It was used as a prison in the 17th century (Voltaire and the Marquis de Sade were among its most famous inmates). Detention was quite comfortable for those who had the financial possibilities and relations and the prisoner could give parties, and organize suppers. By the time of the French Revolution the Bastille fortress was used less and less. It was stormed by the Paris Mob on July 14,1789 at the start of the French Revolution. When the people stormed the bastion there were only seven prisoners - four money counterfeiters and the Count of Solages, who was imprisoned under the accusation of incest. The governor and the whole garrison were murdered and the mob looted all the weapons. Louis XVI was unimpressed and recorded in his diary: "Today, nothing".

The Bastille was demolished soon after the French Revolution. Today, on the spot where the prison used to stay, special pavements show you the limits of the fundaments (between 5, place de la Bastille and 49, boulevard Henri IV). In the subway station beneath the square, stones from the Bastille's foundation can still be seen. Following the dismantling of the Bastille, an enterprising workman, named Palloy, made sculptures of the prison from the rubble, and sold them to local councils, who were denounced as anti-republican if they refused the high price demanded. The rest was used to finish the Pont de la Concorde. The original remains of the Bastille prison are a few rocks in the square Galli, in Sully-Morland, some stones on the metro line Pantin-Italie (direction Pantin), a Bastille-souvenir carved in original Bastille stone displayed at the musee Carnavalet and the ancient chime of the Bastille inside the "Hippopotamus" restaurant on the place de la Bastille.

Colonne de Juillet--The July Column doesn't commemorate the Revolution but honors the victims of the July Revolution of 1830, which put Louis-Philippe on the throne after the heady but wrenching victories and defeats of Napoleon Bonaparte. The winged God of Liberty, whose forehead bears an emerging star, crowns the tower. When the actual column of the Bastille was erected it was alternately called the Colonne de Juillet, a monument to the revolution of 1830 . The column is engraved in gold with the names of Parisians who died during the revolution. The gold-covered statue at the top is called the Génie de la Révolution (the Genesis of the Revolution, approximately) The corpses of the victims were buried under the column. Today, besides of still being a symbol for democracy and the starting point of a lot of protest demonstrations heading for the place de la Republique,

The area is dominated by another manifestation of the building rage of statesmen: since 1989 the new Opéra de Paris or Opéra-Bastille has opened its doors (Monday-Saturday 10am-6.30pm). This gigantic glass cage has seats for a 2,700 strong audience. The opera has totally transformed the character of the district. But it must be said that the opening of the Opera Bastille started definitively the renewal of the area, as well as his sociological overturning.

We returned to Place St. Michel via the Paris subway.

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