Revolutionaries ransacking the Tuileries Palace in 1848
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The recent unrest across France reminded me why this blog could not be called anything other than Victorian Paris. I remember one reader objecting to the title, asking what had Victoria to do with Paris? Well, the queen visited Paris with her husband and their oldest children, Vicky and Bertie. The family had a fantastic time and bonded quickly with Napoleon III and his wife, Eugenie. Bertie liked them so much that he begged to be adopted. Even though his wish was not granted, Paris became his lifelong playground.
Other than that, Victoria’s link to Paris is weak, indeed. But consider this: what else is on offer? Given Paris’ tumultuous 19th-century history, what could replace the Victorian period in readers’ minds? At any given time, there were various French monarchs and pretenders exiled in England. They were either taking tea with the queen, or plotting the overthrow of the current regime in France.
Here is a brief overview of Paris during Victoria’s long reign:
1837 (England) – On June 20th, Victoria, aged 18, becomes Queen of England, succeeding her uncle William IV.
1837 (France) After the brief July Revolution in 1830, Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans, was proclaimed King. He was the reigning monarch during Victoria’s throne ascent.
1848 (England) Princess Louise Caroline Alberta is born – Queen Victoria’s sixth child.
1848 (France) The February Revolution. After two days’ fighting, Louis Philippe flees to England, and the Second Republic is proclaimed. Crossing the Channel in the opposite direction is Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. He is the son of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland and the nephew of the brilliant Corsican, the emperor Napoleon. After a successful electoral campaign, financed by an English courtesan, he is elected President of the French Republic.
1852 (England) The queen is pregnant with Prince Leopold George Duncan, her eighth child.
1852 (France) In December, Louis Napoleon stages a coup d’état to be elected emperor by universal suffrage. He adopts the title Napoleon III. A regime known as the Second Empire is established.
1870 (England) The queen actively mourns her husband, Prince Albert, who died of typhoid fever in 1861, aged 42.
1870 (France) The Franco-Prussian war rages. The Second Empire falls after the decisive defeat of the French army in Sedan. The emperor surrenders to the enemy. His wife, Empress Eugenie, flees to England, where she is later joined by her husband and son. The Third Republic is proclaimed. The French feel humiliated as the victorious Prussians celebrate the birth of the German Empire in Versailles, the traditional seat of French royalty.
1871 (England) The queen still mourns her husband.
1871 (France) Paris is surrounded, shelled, and starved by the enemy army. Unlike France’s legitimate government, seated at Versailles, the city does not accept an armistice. The Commune erupts – the greatest revolution since 1789. In May, while the German army still surrounds Paris, the French government troops storm the city. This is followed by a massacre of thousands. The Commune is defeated.
1901 (England) Queen Victoria dies, aged 81.
1901 (France) The country enjoys a prosperity period known as the Belle Époque.
Paris destroyed by arson during the Commune in 1871. In the foreground is the Palace of Tuilleries
The pension reform that has been at the core of the violent protests in France has to be dealt with by other aging EU countries. Many governments fear the French scenario. They shouldn’t. There is no other nation that enjoys revolutions and stormy protests to this extent.
You Might Be Able to Swim in Paris’ Seine River by 2024
Paris is taking the plunge to make the Seine River squeaky clean, and if you believe in mermaids like I do, they’re about to get a real upgrade in real estate! But, more importantly, residents and tourists alike will be able to splash around and romanticize their life in the City of Love by 2024. The Seine River, a cherished and well-known natural landmark of Paris, has never been known as an ideal swimming spot, but significant progress has been made to fulfill Paris’s promise of clean water for the 2024 Summer Olympics. The city’s workers have made progress in improving the water quality of the 483-mile-long river, which is a huge undertaking in itself. So, how will the river be cleaned? Paris has developed the Swimming Plan for 2024, using an underground network of pipes, tanks, and pumps to prevent bacteria from entering the river. With over $1.53 billion from the Games, improved water quality could allow both Olympic swimmers and locals to enjoy the river, but they will have to wait until next year for safe swimming access to approximately 20 designated swimming areas along the Seine.
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In the capital of Ukraine, where due to Russian willful destruction there is no power, this year’s Christmas celebrations will be a sad affair. The situation in Kyiv is very similar to what Paris lived under the Prussian siege during the harsh winter of 1870-71. The poignant suffering of Parisians during that period comes from the pen of Francis Sarcey, writer and journalist, who left a bitter report of that year’s festivities.
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We reached the last days of December. How sad were those days, which are ordinarily consecrated to joy! It is true that we had a pale consolation of satisfied revenge, in thinking that the Germans, detained under Paris, would not celebrate their Christmas with their families, and that the traditional Christmas tree would only see around it melancholy faces and crying eyes. But, ourselves, how different this Christmas was for us from those nights of solemn feasts which formerly broke out gaily throughout Paris in honor of this anniversary!
Shelling during the Siege of Paris, Francisque Sarcey (1871)
Most churches had closed their doors; through the kerosene-lit streets, plunged in semi-darkness, sounded the rare step of some belated passer-by. A small number of restaurants had remained open, either in the ordinary center of Parisian pleasures, from the Boulevard des Italiens to the Boulevard Montmartre, or in the populous quarters, at Montmartre, at Menilmontant and at Belleville. There, we had, out of dilettantism, gathered for supper around extravagant and bizarre menus. Wolf chops featured alongside roasted elephant trunk and kangaroo en capilotade, all washed down with classic champagne. We were tickling each other to make each other laugh. No one had the heart to have fun.
Menu of December 25, 1870. Cafe Voisin, 261 rue Saint-Honoré. It is featuring stuffed donkey head, leg of wolf, cat surrounded by rats, kangaroo stew, and antelope terrine
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Zoo animals were killed for food
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Meats shops sold dogs, cats, and rats
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A ration ticket
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[The daily wage of an unskilled laborer was around one franc. Women and children seldom earned above fifty cents.]
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The whole month of December was terribly hard to go through. The privations increased as the stock of our supplies diminished. All the food that accompanies bread and meat had risen to exorbitant prices, which rose every day. A pound of oil commonly cost six to seven francs! The butter, it was not necessary to speak of it; they were fancy prices, 40 or 50 francs a kilo; Gruyère was not sold; it would have cost too much; he [the merchant] gave it himself as a gift. I know a very pretty woman who, on New Year’s Day, received, instead of the usual sweets, a bag of potatoes and a piece of cheese. A piece of cheese is a royal present; potatoes were worth 25 francs a bushel; they were much more expensive for small households who bought them by the liter or by the heap. A cabbage was priced at six francs; it was sold leaf by leaf, and such, which in the past one would hardly have dared to offer to one’s rabbits, figured nobly in the horse stew.
Many had bought rabbits, which they fed on peelings, while waiting for the famine to force them to make pies. At the time when I write these lines, I have near me, in my study, two rabbit brothers, crouched in a corner of the room, and who look at me with their big frightened air. The housekeeper brought them to me, claiming that they were bored all alone in their niche, that they were cold there and did not want to eat any more. This last consideration decided me; I received them, and I try to distract them. I will be careful not to read this chapter to them, where their sentence is pronounced; they would only lose weight with grief.
Soup for the poorest was available at the city-run facilities
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The number [of provisions] grew more rare day by day. The bourgeoisie was beginning to see the end of their reserves. I had followed with curious interest the progress of this exhaustion. I belonged to a small society where people met to play either whist or hot water bottle. The betting rate and the way of pushing the game did not change significantly in the first month; from the second, the card fell by half, then by three quarters, and finally towards the end of the last days of the blockade, it was agreed that no more money would be played.
We were all dry, and had barely enough to look forward to better days. What about those who had no reserves? It was the vast majority of Parisians, it must be admitted. No, I cannot tell our brothers in the provinces too often with what indomitable courage, with what touching resignation, with what invincible feeling of patriotism this whole population endured the rigors of this long misery. The women especially were admirable.
I don’t pity men too much; most had their thirty sous a day, which many of them drank shamelessly. But women! Poor women! In those abominable December colds, they lined up all day, at the baker’s, at the butcher’s, at the grocer’s, at the lumber merchant’s, at the town hall. None murmured; never have I heard from a single one of those mouths, accustomed to harsh words, an impious word against France.
Balloons provided the only contact with the outside world
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And on the morning of the first of January! No, I will never forget that first morning of the year 1871; when the maid brought me lunch on a small table, and on this feast day, when the whole family is usually gathered together and is joyfully overwhelmed with wishes and kisses, I saw myself all alone, by the fireside, opposite a piece of horse, which was smoking on the plate. I felt my whole being fail and burst into tears! Ah! These tears that others have shed in this cruel hour! Consider that all, or almost all of us, had sent our mothers, our wives and our children away, and that for three months we had lived without news of any kind! It was easy, in ordinary times, not to be bewildered by this solitude; business, conversations, guards to be mounted, the accustomed course of life, and then also this carefree philosophy, which is the foundation of our national character, everything contributed to warding off the memory of these cherished images; noises from outside distracted us from their thoughts.
The solemnity of that day brought them all back to us, and as they looked at us, with sad eyes, and stretching out their arms to us, they seemed to be saying to us: “Call us back! Won’t this cursed war soon be over?”… No, I can’t think of all this without my heart rising with rage. Miserables! Sons of the Huns! Barbarians! You have taken everything from us. We are ruined by you, starved by you, and presently we are going to be bombarded by you, and we certainly have the right to hate you with a cordial hatred.
How very true and very painful would these words sound to millions of Ukrainians whose families have been split apart by the war. Let’s hope the Christmas of 2023 will find them all together again. Slava Ukraine!
Paris’ celebrated Père Lachaise cemetery is the resting place of many world-famous and infamous as well as an outdoor art gallery. This oasis of tranquility and greenery sees one million visitors a year.
The hill, on which the cemetery is established, originally served as a site for the rest and convalescence of Jesuit priests. It was named after the confessor of King Louis XIV, Père de la Chaise.
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History
The Holy Innocents Cemetery
The centrally situated Holy Innocents’ Cemetery, where Parisians buried their dead, was used from the Middle Ages until the late 18th century. It was closed in 1785 when Parisians could no longer bear the repugnant stench emanating from the graves. Serious overcrowding pushed up the price of burial space, and bodies were packed so closely together that many graves collapsed through the cellar walls of surrounding houses. Over the course of six months, day and night, 4,183 bone transports were organized. The transfers were accompanied by a full religious ceremony, complete with chanting Catholic priests. The remains of over six million Parisians were laid to rest in the city’s elaborate catacomb system.
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The bones from the Cemetery of Innocents were stored underground. The Catacombes, where you can see them, are part of the regular tourist itinerary
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The 1789 revolution disrupted the project of new burial places, which was later carried on under the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte, who created the Père Lachaise cemetery in 1804. The idea of a long trek to the city outskirts was not well received as Parisians were used to paying homage to their loved ones in the city center.
The Père Lachaise cemetery had a slow beginning
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To boost interest, the authorities created a brilliant marketing scheme. The remains of prominent dead celebrities were dug up, and reburied in Père Lachaise, starting with the bones of the 12th century iconic lovers, Héloise and Abélard, followed by other serious celebrities such as the playwright Molière, and writer Jean de La Fontaine. People started buying up plots as it became the height of fashion to spend the eternity amidst the crème de la crème of Parisian society. Today the cemetery is one of the most exclusive places to be buried. To qualify, you must have been born in Paris, lived in Paris, died in Paris, or have an existing family plot.
Some one million people are buried in the Père Lachaise cemetery. It is the largest green space in Paris with over four thousand trees and is home to the most varied species of birds in the city.
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The Crematorium
Père Lachaise houses a neo-byzantine style crematorium, the first in France. The first cremation in 1889 was quite controversial. While the Protestant faith allowed cremation as of 1888, the Catholic Church did not support the concept until 1966.
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Funeral Sculpture
The cemetery is an open-air museum of funeral sculpture best represented by Albert Bartholomé’s stunning Monument for the Dead inaugurated in 1899.
The Monument for the Dead (Monument aux Morts)
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Along with the solemn, the pious, and the serious, there are original and sometimes bizarre creations celebrating the dead.
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One who doesn’t seem to like his final resting place, it’s Georges Rodenbach, a 19th-century Belgian novelist. We see him extracting himself from his grave.
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Another unusual grave belongs to journalist Victor Noir assassinated in 1870. The sculptor froze him in time as he fell in the street after the shooting. The sculpture brought him post-mortem glory as Père Lachaise’s fetish of fertility.
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Visitors bring tributes to the dead. They leave potatoes on the tomb of Antoine-Augustin Parmentier (1737-1813), an agronomist, best remembered for promoting the potato as a food source for humans
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The Communard’s Wall (Mur des Fédérés)
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The Père Lachaise cemetery was not always a haven of peace. During the Commune of Paris, the place saw hand-to-hand combat among the graves, where the Communards took their last stand. At the end of the “Bloody Week”, on May 28, 1871, one hundred and forty-seven Communards were taken prisoner and were shot against the east wall of the cemetery. Their bodies, and thousands more taken from the streets of Paris, were buried in a mass grave. Every May 28, for 150 years, a ceremony takes place by the wall as workers endeavor to remember the tragic event.
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A ceremony by the Communard’s Wall marking the 150-year anniversary of the Paris Commune in 2021
I had another topic ready for the month of July when I came across the article THE RETURN OF PARISIANS TO THE CAPITAL IN JUNE 1871 translated below. The picture makes me uncomfortable, as does all war propaganda. Although the author of the article claims the painting is the perfect depiction of the situation and a mixture of tragedy and comedy, I beg to differ. No one in Paris laughed at the end of the greatest catastrophe the city suffered in its entire history. There was no place for comedy in June 1871 after Parisians returned to a city in ruins, permeated by the stench of death. The painter stayed anonymous for a reason. The picture is heavily biased toward the sacrifice of the Communards and portrays the bourgeoisie as pitiless villains.
In reality, no one had the guts to laugh. A truthful assessment of the situation comes from the pen of the novelist George Sand, already quoted in another article published in Victorian Paris The Bloodbath of the Paris Commune.
She wrote:
I come from Paris, and I do not know whom to speak to. I am suffocated. I am quite upset, or rather out of heart. The sight of the ruins is nothing compared to the great Parisian insanity. With very rare exceptions, everybody seemed to me only fit for the strait-jacket. One-half of the population longs to hang the other half, which returns the compliment. That is clearly to be read in the eyes of the passers-by.”
For years afterward, foreign visitors roamed Paris clutching printed guides to the ruins. Expeditions were organized to see the destroyed palace of Tuilleries, the gutted City Hall, the scorched Louvre, and other historical buildings set aflame by the Communards in the last days of the Commune called the Bloody Week. The massacres that followed beat by far the Terror years after the 1789 revolution. There was no specific guilty party in these tragic events of the Commune. No good guys against bad guys. The guilt spreads evenly over all actors. The Paris Commune is still a subject of enormous controversy in France, even one and a half-century later.
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TRANSLATION:
Bertrand TILLIER, « Le retour des Parisiens dans la capitale en juin 1871 », Histoire par l’image [en ligne], consulté le 27/06/2022. URL : histoire-image.org/etudes/retour-parisiens-capitale-juin-1871
THE RETURN OF PARISIANS TO THE CAPITAL IN JUNE 1871
Publication date: March 2016
Author: Bertrand TILLIER
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
The return of Parisians to the capital in June 1871
After the “Bloody Week” and from the last days of May 1871, Parisians returned in large numbers to Paris, which they had generally left in two massive waves: some after the proclamation of the siege on September 19, 1870, others after the 18 March 1871. Most of them left for the greater suburbs or the provinces. Some have followed the wanderings of governments in Tours, Bordeaux and Versailles. Thus kept away from the capital, the Parisians experience the events through rumors and the press.
On their return, they discover the spectacle of a city in ruins, with rutted streets and burnt buildings, while Versailles repression continues its task.
IMAGE ANALYSIS
A synthetic work
This anonymous work is one of the few to depict the confrontation between the communards and their adversaries. But this table is above all a perfect summary of the situation in the first days of June 1871.
The artist located the scene in the middle of ruined buildings and at the foot of a gutted barricade guarded by a Versailles infantryman. On a section of the wall, official posters with the header of the Paris Commune are torn, as if to say again its crushing.
In this environment where destruction and violence reign, the artist distributes the roles to characters so stereotyped that they seem like actors: an elegant couple, a bourgeois and a priest moved by a common curiosity are assembled around the corpse of a federate with a shattered head. Using his cane – should we see an allusion to the military cudgel, an attribute of repression? –, the bourgeois examines the body of the communard, repugnant but fascinating.
The scene is essentially based on this parable-like confrontation.
INTERPRETATION
A tragic scene
The opposition between communards and Versailles presented in this work is based above all on the use of the most widespread social types in popular imagery and imagination: the priest, the bourgeois, the miserable…
Thanks to an applied touch, the painter likes to accentuate the contrasts between stereotyped characters, and more particularly between the fat bourgeois and the lean federated, whose respective constitutions are widely connoted: the fat possesses (power, money… ) which the lean lacks. Conversely, the thin is nervous, convulsive, and fragile: “qualities” all the more fatal as the fat who ignores them is the survivor and the winner.
The work is effective through the mixture of tragedy and comedy that permanently governs it, as if the artist could only subscribe to a usual derision in caricature, but intruded in painting, and without managing to renounce ambient violence. It is precisely in this ambiguity of intention – does the scene express sympathy for the Versaillese or for the Commune? – and in this procrastination of means that the work is the most impactful.
When you take a guided tour in France—whether it is a Loire château, or any other building erected before 1789—inevitably, there comes the time when the guide says: “Unfortunately, during the Revolution…,” and there follows a list of damaged or destroyed artifacts. The French were fond of revolutions – when they were happening. Afterward, seeing what they had done in moments of passion, they wept.
The 1789 revolution, the very first one, is well known. The guillotine, the years of terror, king Louis XVI and queen Marie-Antoinette executed. Having acquired the taste of it, the French people became serial revolutionaries. March 18 marks the anniversary of the Commune of Paris, one of the three revolutions that shook the city in the 19th century and was the bloodiest of all. The sixty-two days of its duration caused up to thirty thousand deaths (the number varies according to different sources).
What led to this bloodbath? Why did the prosperous France of the Second Empire wake up as an impoverished Third Republic? Why was Paris in ruins?
In July 1870, the French declare war on Prussia, or, rather, are tricked into doing it. The crafty Chancellor Bismarck needs the conflict to unify a collection of small German-speaking countries into one powerful nation. Ill-prepared, the French army is defeated by the Prussians in the battle of Sedan and the emperor Napoleon III made prisoner. Riots in Paris follow the bad news and the next day, September 4th, the empire is overthrown. A Republican government moves into the City Hall, while the Prussians close in on Paris.
During the siege, dogs, cats, and rats were sold at high prices. The rich dined on exotic meat provided by the zoo animals
Paris is besieged during the winter months. The weather is cruel and the city suffers from a severe famine. Hunger and typhoid fever ravage Paris from within, while the Prussians shell it from the outside. Starved and ill, the Parisians learn that a new humiliation has visited the country: the German Empire has been proclaimed at Versailles Palace and an armistice has been signed.
The Empire of Germany, a new European power, is proclaimed in the Versailles palace
This does not sit well with the Parisians, who do not consider themselves defeated. The German boots desecrating the exquisite beauty of the Hall of Mirrors? Ce n’est pas acceptable! Anger rises when they learn the terms of peace. Germans demand a two-day entry to Paris, the surrender of two provinces (Alsace and Lorraine) and war reparations amounting to one billion gold coins. Their army would occupy the country until the debt was paid off.
The German victory parade in the streets of Paris
Aware that a revolt is brewing, the government moves its headquarters from Paris to Versailles. The spark ignites when the government tries to disarm Paris by confiscating 248 cannons from Montmartre and other working-class neighborhoods on the periphery. The cannons belong to the city; they were paid for by war subscription. The people rise to defend their property and the soldiers’ loyalty shifts. Two generals are seized and shot. There is no way back. The insurgents erect barricades and the Commune of Paris is proclaimed.
800 barricades went up in the city
Elected on March 26th, the Commune is in direct opposition to the conservative national government. The core, as in all revolutions, are intellectuals, students, writers, artists, and artisans with egalitarian ideas and the vision of justice for all. Outraged by the government’s betrayal, many Parisians of the middle class join in the insurrection. The main muscle of the revolution is the impressionable working class which, when excited, easily turns into a mob.
Women were heavily engaged in the insurrection, both as nurses and combatants. The 1789 revolution had its tricoteuses (women who took their knitting to the guillotine to keep their hands busy during the executions). The Commune of Paris gave birth to the pétroleuses. “The women behaved like tigresses, throwing petroleum everywhere and distinguishing themselves by the fury with which they fought”. (Edwin Child, a young Londoner working in Paris.)
The basic ideas of the revolution are modern and positive: reform of the working conditions, good children education, separation of the church and the state, women’s equality. Their application is awkward, to say the least. “Property is theft,” the revolutionaries declare as they seize the Bank of France. All religious institutions are invaded, their material goods confiscated, the churches turned into social clubs for the people. On April 23, George Sand, the famous novelist and herself a Republican, writes to Gustav Flaubert, author of Madame Bovary: “The horrible adventure continues. They ransom, they threaten, they arrest, they judge. They have taken over all the city halls, all the public establishments, they’re pillaging the munitions and the food supplies.”
Churches became social clubs for the people
Without a clear program and with no political experience, the feeling of brotherhood, with which the Commune started, changes into quarrel and resentment. Valuable time is lost in endless debates and little is achieved. Like George Sand, Parisians become tired of this bizarre social experiment. They long for peace and quiet; the poorer ones want to return to their familiar misery with its own reassuring habits. Others, the ardent supporters, are determined to fight. “The Commune or death!” they chant.
The Versailles troops approach the walls of Paris
Meanwhile, in Versailles, the government has reconstituted the army with war prisoners released by the Germans. The Germans hold their position northwest of the city while the Versailles troops approach from the southeast. Paris is surrounded again. The insurgents attempt several attacks outside the city walls, each time with no success. They send emissaries to Versailles, who are killed. The Commune, in turn, captures hostages, chiefly among the clergy. On May 21st, the Versailles troops break in and the infamous Bloody Week begins.
Barricades are reinforced and new ones added as the combat rages street by street. The soldiers break into houses and pierce passages through walls to avoid confrontation with the barricades
The army takes no prisoners. Every adversary is shot dead. Unarmed civilians caught with gunpowder traces on their hands are executed as well. The Communards take revenge by killing the hostages. The Archbishop of Paris is among the victims.
The massacre of hostages
The execution of the Archbishop of Paris
Paris burning. In the foreground is the imperial palace
Paris is shelled again, this time by the French army. The Ministry of Finance is destroyed in the process. Fires break out in many prestigious locations. These are later explained by the partisans of the Commune as the result of the shelling. (However, most of the gutted buildings bore no traces of shelling. They were deliberately set on fire.) The legend of the pétroleuses, if it is a legend, starts here. As a result, working-class women caught carrying a suspicious container are summarily executed.
The City Hall on fire
The imperial palace after the fire
Government and police offices are consumed by the fire, their archives destroyed. The air, already unbreathable, is filled with whirling charred paper remains that settle on the roofs and sidewalks. The Tuileries palace is a total loss. The stones will be sold, piece by piece, as construction material. A wing of the Louvre also suffers fire damage.
The novelist Emile Zola was one of the first reporters to enter the city during the Bloody Week. He wrote: “Never in civilized times has such a terrible crime ravaged a great city […] The men of the Hotel de Ville could not be other than assassins and arsonists. They were beaten and fled like robbers from the regular army, and took vengeance upon the monuments and houses […] The fires of Paris have pushed over the limit the exasperation of the army. […] Those who burn and who massacre merit no other justice than the gunshot of a soldier.”
The end of the Commune
The revenge is atrocious and out of proportion. The Commune killed 64 hostages yet the insurgents are now butchered by the thousands. Nobody is spared, even the injured patients in an ambulance along with the doctors and nurses. Women are shot with children in their arms.
Many innocents were shot along with the rebels
Four days after the battle is over, Emile Zola reports in a softened tone: “The court martials are still meeting and the summary executions continue, less numerous, it’s true. The sound of firing squads, which one still hears in the mournful city, atrociously prolongs the nightmare […] Paris is sick of executions. It seems to Paris that they’re shooting everyone. Paris is not complaining about the shooting of the members of the Commune, but of innocent people. It believes that, among the pile, there are innocent people, and that it’s time that each execution is preceded by at least an attempt at a serious inquiry […] When the echoes of the last shots have ceased, it will take a great deal of gentleness to heal the million people suffering nightmares, those who have emerged, shivering from the fire and massacre.”
G. Sand
Emerging, shivering from the fire, is also George Sand. She writes:” I come from Paris, and I do not know whom to speak to. I am suffocated. I am quite upset, or rather out of heart. The sight of the ruins is nothing compared to the great Parisian insanity. With very rare exceptions, everybody seemed to me only fit for the strait-jacket. One-half of the population longs to hang the other half, which returns the compliment. That is clearly to be read in the eyes of the passers-by.”
Prisoners being taken to Versailles
The surviving rebels are marched twenty miles to Versailles. They suffer insults along the way. One of the gossipy Goncourt brothers later recalled that he saw society ladies, who had never raised their voice, vomit their hatred using invectives that would make a sailor blush.
Female prisoners awaiting interrogations
The trials were of short duration, with the executions soon after
The prisoners, who were not condemned to death, were shipped to New Caledonia, an island in the Pacific Ocean. Forty-three thousand were sent there in crowded conditions and with little food. A handful came back after the amnesty twenty years later.
In all, with tens of thousands dead, countless injured, and another forty thousand deported, it took over ten years to restore the Paris working force. Those people were not only the manual laborers. They were also highly skilled workers and artisans of superior training. Even today, 146 years after the event, there are fresh flowers laid at the wall where the last Communards were executed. The working class keeps paying respect to the victims of this Parisian calamity.
Anton von Werner, The Proclamation of the German Empire (January 18, 1871)
King of Prussia`s proclamation as Emperor of Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles; Bismarck can be seen in the center wearing white.
When declaring war on Prussia in July 1870, Frenchmen did not expect that within months the prosperous Second Empire would be no more. It all happened so fast: the war, the fall of the Empire and its replacement by the Third Republic, followed by the Prussian occupation and the horrors of the Commune uprising yet to come. For Prussia, however, it was a time of glory and the time for unification of all the small German-speaking kingdoms and duchies into a new European power – the German Empire. To France’s chagrin and humiliation, the ceremony was held in the famous Hall of Mirrors in Versailles. For Otto von Bismarck, architect of the unification project, the day marked the culmination of his political career.
Nasir al-Din Shah, ruler of Persia 1848-96, photo by Nadar
Two years later, on a visit to Paris, the Shah of Persia captured in his diary the prevailing French mood and the political confusion that reigned at the time:
To-day we noticed a singular frame of mind in the French. First of all, they still keep up the state of mourning that followed the German War, and they are all, young or old, sorrowful and melancholy. The dresses of the women, ladies and men, are all dresses used for mourning; with little ornamentation and very plain. Now and then some people shouted: “Vive le Maréchal” , “Vive le Shah de Perse!”, from another one I heard , as I strolled about by night, a loud voice saying: “May his reign and rule be firm and enduring.”
From the whole of these circumstances it becomes evident that there are at present in France numerous parties who desire a monarchy; but they are in three sections, one desiring the son of Napoleon, another the dynasty of Louis-Phillipe, and the third Henry the Fifth, who is then Bourbon family; and although this and the family of Louis Phillipe are really one race, they have distinctions.
The wishers for a republic, on the other hand, have great power; but they are not all of one mind. Some are for a Red Republic, which is a fundamental commonweal. Others are for a moderate republic in which monarchical institutions shall be found, without a monarch’s existing. Others again wish otherwise. Among all these diversities of opinion it is now a very difficult matter to govern, and the consequences of these incidents will surely eventuate in many difficulties, unless that all combine on one plan and establish either a pure monarchy or a pure republic. Then, France is the most powerful of States, and all must take her into their calculations; whereas, with all these dissidences it is a difficult matter for her to preserve her institutions.
Excerpt from the Diary of H.M. Shah of Persia During his Tour Through Europe in A.D. 1873
The storming of the Bastille fortress by the people of Paris
An excellent tool for learning about the events is the French Revolution Timeline here.
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THE FIRST REPUBLIC 1789-1792 (The Reign of Terror)
The guillotine
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THE FIRST EMPIRE 1804-1814
In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte declares himself Emperor of the French.
Napoleon I
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THE RESTORATION 1814-1830
Louis XVIII (House of Bourbon) is installed as king.
Louis XVIII
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THE JULY REVOLUTION 1830
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THE JULY MONARCHY 1830-1848
The crown goes to Louis Philippe (House of Orléans).
Louis Phillipe
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THE REVOLUTION OF 1848
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THE SECOND REPUBLIC 1848-1852
The nephew of Napoleon I, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, is elected president.
Louis Napoleon, president of the 2nd Republic
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THE SECOND EMPIRE 1852-1870
In December 1851, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte stages a coup d’ėtat. He becomes Napoleon III of the Second Empire.
Napoleon III (same man, upgraded wardrobe)
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THE THIRD REPUBLIC 1870-1940
The Third Republic established itself after the defeat of Napoleon III during the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). Taken prisoner after the decisive Battle of Sedan, he was later exiled to England, where he died in 1873.
Napoleon III prisoner of Bismarck
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THE SIEGE OF PARIS
September 19, 1870 to January 28, 1871
Besieged by the Prussian army, the Parisians eat everything on four legs, including rats.
A soup kitchen during the Siege of Paris
In the meantime, a new European power, Germany, is born in the occupied palace of Versailles:
Anton von Werner, The Proclamation of the German Empire (January 18, 1871)
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THE PARIS COMMUNE
March to May 1871. Popular uprising comparable to the revolution of 1789, severely repressed by the government and ending in the Bloody Week during which an estimated 30,000 people were killed or summarily executed.
Paris burning during the Commune – in the foreground the imperial palace
End of the Bloody Week – bodies exhibited for identification
From Europe Viewed Through American Spectacles by Charles C. Fulton. Text written in 1873.
At the celebrated dry-goods establishment Au Bon Marché, which is extensively patronized by Americans, a new feature has been introduced this season. It having been noticed that American gentlemen frequently get impatient whilst their wives and daughters are shopping, and sometimes hurry them off before they have obtained all they want, a well-fitted-up billiard-saloon has been provided for their amusement whilst the purchases are being made. It seems to answer the purpose well, as the gentlemen are always easy to be found when it is necessary for them to come up to the captain’s office and foot the bill.
An American lady tells us that she went to a hair-dresser’s establishment this morning to get her hair shampooed, and, asking the cost, she received the answer that it would be three francs. After the operation was finished she was presented with a bill for nine francs and upon demurring was told that three of the additional francs were for putting her hair up again, two others for the liquid used, and the fourth for the use of the combs and brush. Can any of our Yankee shampooers come up to this sharp practice?
We stopped in this morning at the horse-meat butcher’s shop to look at the meat. There were nice looking sirloin steaks, spare-rib and sirloin roasts, knuckle-joints for soup, and genuine “salt horse” in abundance. We could not have told it from beef, except that the meat was darker red. The gentleman whom we accompanied assured us that he had eaten it as an experiment, and was of the opinion that it was more tender, as a general thing, than ordinary beef. “But,” he added, “I expect you have frequently dined off of it since you have been in Paris, especially if you have taken any meals at the restaurants”. Well, perhaps we have, but “where ignorance is bliss ‘tis folly to be wise”.
The Commune, during their possession of Paris, destroyed, among other things, all the official records of births and marriages. As most of them were family men and women without marriage, or unconscious of their own parentage, the object was to place all on a level of “equality” in this respect. The work of restoring the records is now in progress as all who are not recorded are regarded in the eye of the law as illegitimate. It has made brisk work for the lawyers.
The Parisians have a singular way of signalizing events in their history by the naming of streets. One of the magnificent boulevards branching off from the Grand Opera-House was named Boulevard 2nd December, the day of the Napoléon coup d’état in 1851. The name is now changed to the Boulevard 4th September, the day of the dethronement of the Emperor and the proclamation of the Republic. Should there be another Empire proclaimed, the name will doubtless be changed again to suit the date of its occurrence.
From Europe Viewed Through American Spectacles by Charles C. Fulton. Text written in 1873.
Fulton was one of the incomprehensibly rich American tourists who invaded Paris two years after the twin calamities of the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second Empire. In 1871, the city was ruined by Prussian bombardment and theCommune of Paris revolution, both responsible for destroying and damaging many public buildings. It is therefore surprising that Fulton never mentions the wounds Paris had sustained. In the two years that followed, Paris seems to have risen from the ashes to dazzle the foreigners as it did under the reign of Napoleon III.
The boulevards of Paris, extending for miles through all sections of the city, present a gay scene at night. The thousands of cafés, brilliant with gas-jets, have their tables out on the broad pavements, and from eight to ten o’clock in the evening it is difficult to obtain a seat in any of them. Ice-cream and coffee is the extent of the Parisian’s indulgence though a few add a little cognac to their coffee. They spend their summer evenings in promenading the boulevards and occasionally stopping for a cup of their favourite beverage.
The sidewalks of the boulevards are at least thirty-five feet wide, and in many prominent places, women are stationed along the curb-stones with chairs to rent, on which those who are tired may for a few centimes rest themselves and view the promenaders as they pass. The broad streets are also filled with carriages so that it is difficult to effect a crossing. They are required by law to have their lamps burning.
Strangers in the city who wish to view these gas-light scenes generally engage carriages and drive slowly through the different boulevards, and a vast number of carriages are constantly passing to a from the various places of amusement. Everybody seems happy and intent upon enjoyment.
[…] The stores are not only brilliantly lighted, but nearly all of them have rows of gas-lights on the outside, making the streets almost as light as day.
The display of the stores last night on the Boulevard des Capucines exceeded anything we had ever before seen even in Paris. […] The tasteful arrangement of the goods, the disposition of the lights, and the reflection in the side-glasses with which the shop-windows are always provided, presented a continuous spectacle of surpassing beauty. Ten years ago the Palais Royal was the great central attraction of Paris, but the boulevard stores have so greatly excelled these small establishments that it is now comparatively deserted at night. The hundreds of jewellers’ windows were sparkling with diamonds and precious stones, and even the fancy and dry-goods stores tried to excel one another in the effort to attract attention of the throngs of promenaders.
We walked through some of these central boulevards for nearly two hours, and everywhere the pavements were so filled that it was difficult for three to walk abreast without being continually jostled by the promenaders. This was also the case in the arcades running through the interior of the squares, where the display was similarly attractive. The best possible order was everywhere preserved and the gensdarmes, with their huge cavalry-swords, stood like statues on the corners of the streets, having no occasion to do more than remain quietly at their posts.
There being no cobble-stone pavements in Paris, the carriages and omnibuses make little or no noise as they glide along the smooth asphaltum, nor is there any dust for them to stir up to vex the eyes and the lungs of the people. The sweeping machines are going all night and until ten o’clock in the morning, making the streets as clean as they could be swept with a corn-broom by hand, and lest any dust should be left in the crevices, they are washed off with hose.
In short, Paris is grand. She has passed through her tribulations, and has again presented herself to the world more beautiful and attractive than ever. That the world is pleased is evident from the many thousands of strangers now lingering here to enjoy the brilliant spectacle.
The Boarding House transports you back to Paris during the enchanting Belle Époque period with a diverse ensemble of players: young and old, servants and socialites, French and foreign, polite and ill-mannered. It’s delicious, devious, and delightful. Iva Polansky writes with a style and authenticity you might wonder if she was there in another life.
NEW!
One for All
Madelon-la-Belle left Paris twenty years ago to escape her damaged reputation. She abandoned her infant daughter, Louise, in the care of her sister. Now she is back, a wealthy widow, and she plans to be a caring mother. Her idea of caring motherhood is to make Louise a high-born heiress. It only needs a little deception.This does not sit well with Louise’s father, Captain d’Artagnan of the Royal Musketeers, who finds Madelon’s plan unsound. He wants to see Louise married as soon as possible, before she becomes a slut like her mother, and has already found a good husband for her. Unfortunately, the formidable Madelon does not agree with d’Artagnan’s choice. A battle of wills ensues, involving d’Artagnan’s long-lost friends, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. A comedy based on Alexandre Dumas’s classic novel The Three Musketeers.
Fame and Infamy / Adventures of an American Maid in Paris
Otto von Bismarck, German secret police, celebrated French artists and Miss Nelly McKay of Butte, Montana, come together in this lively mystery set in 1870’s Paris.
Print or ebook, 410 pages
He was right. She was right. Together they were wrong
THE WAR OF THE TOLSTOYS
Leo Tolstoy’s last days: In 1910, newspapers around the world reported the tribulations of Russia’s most famous writer. The War of the Tolstoys tells it all.
Screenplay, 110 pages
Passion and Wit and Ménage à Trois ( a true story)
Our Divine Emilie
Two of the brightest minds of the French Enlightenment, Voltaire and Emilie du Châtelet, meet the poet Saint-Lambert in a dangerous liaison. Court intrigue, conspiracy, and betrayal are in abundance in this comedy/drama. (A Screenplay)
Victorian Paris 
