In the spring of 1871, the French government capitulated to Prussia.
Paris, which had resisted the enemy siege during the Winter, refused this decision taken by a monarchist-majority parliament.
On March 18th, 1871, the government led by Adolphe Thiers fled the capital for Versailles. Paris then became autonomous, electing its own government called “Commune”.
For seventy-two days, many reforms were carried out: abolition of the death penalty, establishment of a minimum wage, development of women’s right, opening of citizenship to foreigners, freedom of the press proclaimed…
On May 21st, the government army entered Paris.
And then began, the semaine sanglante.
Six o'clock in the evening, Friday May 24, 1871.
The Pantheon is occupied.
The Federated battalions descend in inexpressible disorder.
Dark faces, dirty with dust and gunpowder, torn clothes.
Montmartre is occupied since yesterday.
and it's the shells taken there by the army
that are bombing the neighborhood.
The time for enthusiastic ballots has ended.
The machine guns jolt on the pavement of the rue Lacépède, dragged by fighters.
We left the horses up there.
The shooting has stopped. The dock is still ours.
Why don't we rest?
I haven't had a minute's sleep in two days.
In the morning, I wanted to lie down on the balcony of a friend's house,
in rue Gay-Lussac.
The bullets dislodged me.
I sat down inside, on a sofa,
and again a projectile,
piercing the glass, came whistling to my ear.
It seemed that it came from the bell tower of the Saint Jacques's church.
Beware, in these days of battle, of bell towers.
If we went into this little hotel, near the Cuvier fountain...
There are five or six of us who have made the same plan.
At ten o'clock, everything is still silent.
Certainly the troop also needs to bivouac after the fight.
We have the night ahead of us.
I snore like someone who hasn't slept for two days.
I snore with such serenity
that it's five o'clock on my watch when
the sun, freely breaking through the window,
forces my eyes to open.
At the same time, one of my comrades enters abruptly.
-The versaillais are here, we are surrounded…
I run to the window.
Downstairs, the small square on which the gate of the Jardin des Plantes opens
is filled with soldiers.
In the middle, a pile of weapons surrounded by a group of soldiers.
A strong man, square-shouldered, with a tricolor armband on his sleeve,
brandishes a rifle and crushes its butt on the pile.
- Another one! he shouts with a furious voice.
Uniforms, kepis, belts thrown randomly on the pavement.
Leaning against the gate, two national guards in the camp of the Versaillais.
Blue kepis with wide white stripe,
revolver in yellow leather sheath,
high boots.
Saber at the side, grey capote.
Tricolor armband sewn to the sleeve.
We need to go, to flee anywhere, but quickly.
Already, we see the platoons forming,
entering the neighboring houses,
coming out with seized weapons,
packages, and prisoners.
But I have papers,
and very compromising ones.
A pass card for the Place Vendôme
on the day the column fell.
That's already something...
Another one, even more incriminating,
the green card issued by the Commune,
a kind of ticket that was only given for good reasons.
It indicates my name,
and my profession.
That's enough to get me shot without further examination.
I quickly tear up the two cards,
and slip the pieces under the carpet nailed to the floor.
We go out, the friend who came to pick me up and I.
My heart is pounding when I set foot on the first step.
Let’s go !
And as the door of the small hotel is cluttered by soldiers who talk and laugh,
and who block me the way, I stand by, waiting for them to make a space for me,
a little blonde girl of three or four years
whose crazy curls I stroke,
as if I were a regular of the house.
Try to take me, with that,
for an insurgent...
Let's go back to the Quarter, eh?
I say to my friend.
At the turn of the street Lacépède...
The shots of a firing squad, very close.
It comes from the Jardin des plantes. I turn around.
The officer with the tricolor armband is still there.
He pulls over, a group walks by.
Surrounded by bayoneted soldiers, two civilians.
Executions began.
Let’s go.
Everywhere soldiers, hunters, Versaillais fighters that I saw the day before,
before the attack on the Pantheon,
behind the gates of the Luxembourg and in front of the barricade of the rue Soufflot.
The pubs are full of them.
They toast loudly, on the zinc,
ringing the guns on the floor,
throwing away the white pieces, their belt stuffed with revolvers.
We arrive at the street of the old-Estrapade.
There, a barricade.
Two officers with armbands and gray capotes.
- Let's go, they shout to those who pass by, let's destroy it! Quickly!
We need to take our paving stone, to throw it in the ditch full of weapons and uniforms.
- And to think that among these scoundrels, he shouts, there are some who have built it...
And after a pause:
- Well, the pigs, they paid for it.
You should have seen that, last night, in the Jardin du Luxembourg !
Now, the dreadful sight of the day after the victory.
Broken streets,
houses flayed by shells and bullets,
black and red cobblestones, black with gunpowder, red with blood,
sidewalks sown with a thousand different things thrown out of the windows....
We must hasten to get rid of anything that might remind the investigators
that we are involved, in any way,
with the Commune.
Even today, historians argue about the number of executions that took place during the semaine sanglante (bloody week).
Their assessments vary between 5,000...
and 30,000 deaths.
Text extracted from " Mes cahiers rouges " by Maxime Vuillaume.
Written during and after the Commune. Published between 1908 and 1914.
The descendants of Thiers have worked well
There are no more cannons to confiscate
The bankruptcy of the system is ordinary
Rocked by a reactionary violence
No plaques, no street names,
no tears shed on our flowers,
no statues, no Sacred Heart.