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187118 March–28 May 1871 · Paris

Paris Commune

National Guards pose with a cannon behind a sandbag barricade in rue de Castiglione, Paris, 1871
Archival image: Attributed to Auguste Bruno Braquehais. CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

After France's defeat by Prussia, the national government sent troops to take the National Guard's cannons from Montmartre. Crowds stopped them, and Paris elected a revolutionary council, the Commune, which separated church and state and ran the city for ten weeks. Government troops retook it in the 'Bloody Week' of May, killing thousands; the last defenders were shot against a wall in Père Lachaise cemetery.

Sites

  1. Site 1: Montmartre and Square Louise-MichelThe hilltop where the rising began, below the basilica built after it.Map ↗
  2. Site 2: Mur des Fédérés, Père LachaiseThe wall where the last Communards were shot, still a place of remembrance.Map ↗
  3. Site 3: Hôtel de VilleThe city hall the Commune governed from, burned in May 1871 and rebuilt.Map ↗

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