VIII. A PAST THAT IS FORTOTTEN YET INDELIBLE

MENU: 8. A PAST VANISHED YET INDELIBLE

"SOCIAL SERVICES ARE THE WEALTH OF THE POOR" SAYS THE MAYOR OF THE 13th DISTRICT

Behind the exemplary social services and very popular promotion of innovative arts, are struggles that have been largely forgotten. A walk in my neighborhood introduces their imprint.

      Un Combat pendant la Commune, 1870's, zoom

The Labor Day parade (on the American May Day) begins at the 13th's City Hall. 

In brief

• In the footsteps of "demons"

• Small businesses that Communards would value

• Parks replace industrial sites

• Innovative arts flourish

• A district that leans left

• The city's newest festival

• More gifts from City Hall

• The obscure 13th, a place to pitch your tent?

• WHAT HAPPENED? THE WAR DID

• "The future comes up from behind"

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Next,

VIII.1.
In the footsteps of "demons"

VIII.5. A DISTRICT THAT LEANS LEFT

MENU : 8.5. A district that leans left

THESE STRIKERS DEMONSTRATE AT PLACE D'ITALIE

(MAY 2024)

Residents approve.

• A Social-Democratic City
• Posters and signs
• The May Day parade begins at the 13th's City Hall

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Next,

A Social-Democratic City

 

A SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC CITY

LOCAL INITIATIVES...

Zoom

Festival of ecological combat, 2025

In a wider context 

FOR OR AGAINST / greening and pedestrianizing 500 small streets / Vote March 23

The vote was favorable and work for greening immediately began.

BUDGET 2025 a cantine fee from 0.13€, unchanged for 10 years

BUDGET 2025 / TRANSPORT PASS REIMBURSED FOR UNDER 18s, SENIORS AND HANDICAPPED

PARIS RECRUITS FOR ITS GARDENS

A center for city-wide youth opened in March, 2025

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Next,

Posters and signs

VIII.1. IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF "DEMONS"

 MENU: 8.1. In the footsteps of "demons"

LOW-COST MODERN BUILDINGS REPLACE HOVELS, AND SOCIAL SERVICES, GREENING AND INNOVATIVE ART MEAN THAT MISERY IS ALMOST FORGOTTEN*

*Though social services lead to beggars on the main street (rue de Tolbiac). 

We start with the church where the last battle was fought and the passage by which surviving Communards took flight.

The huge space behind the church, built to let the army assemble with horses and cannons, must be the place "in the west" where fiery Sérizier and his battalion of "demons" fought their last battle (for the context, please click back here, here and here).

--  "In the west:" Éléments d'histoire de la Commune dans le 13e arrondissement  by Gérard Conte, 1981,

 study based on archival documents.

Harald Wolff

Toward 17h, the defeated survivors dispersed to their homes, via the passage behind the Church and rue des Château des Rentiers (we will come to it). Sérizier, too well known to go home, took refuge in a house there as his battalion spread out.* 

My reasoning is based on the account of Gérard Comte, whose topic is the massacre of Dominican monks earlier that day. He says that Sérizier and the battalion leave the monks in apparent safety, go off to fight "in the west," after which the fighters disperse and Sérizier falls back to a house on the street just mentioned.

The fight must have taken place in the space around the church, which had been built by an earlier government to let troops assemble. That part of the Versaillais army would have marched from the center, which by that time it controlled, along the long, straight street to the space meant for assembly in the front of the church. Defeated, the Communards could not have taken the artery their opponents occupied, so much have rushed to rear of the church and fled through the passage that leads to the other (much smaller) street that cuts through the neighborhood, rue du Château des Rentiers.

The next pages follow

the fleeing Communards' route. 

     Adapted from a map of 1900 / zoom

In brief

• The passage by which the survivors fled 
• The passage by which survivors fled 
• City-run residences
• Another residence. Greening. Sculptures. Bikes. Gyms. Gardens
• More social services. More gardens. Local engagement
• Election posters in a real democracy

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Next,

The passage by which the survivors fled 

 

POSTERS AND SIGNS

A HAMMER AND SICKLE NEXT TO A BUS TERMINAL AT THE TOP OF A SLOPE, WHICH ONE SEES FROM AFAR

July 2025

Back to the area where the Communards fled

(In 2024-2025 unless otherwise said)

 2022, space leading to the series of parks on the site of  a Say sugar refinery

"For public services against the Europe of money"

                                                      Before the legislative elections of June 2024 on the railing of parc de Choisy

"Where do you think you're going if you go right?"

 

Elections 2024, corner rues Sthrau / Nationale

"Racists vote. And you?"  "Where are you on June 9?" (The day of the European elections) "The rich vote. And you?"

November 2024, corner rues Tolbiac / Baudricourt

"The Dignity of Work" / "Movement of Communist Youth of France" / "Solidarity with Palestine"

June 2024, corner  rue de Tolbiac / rue du Château des Rentiers

"Against fascism!" / The force to change it all!" (France Unbowed) / "Animal reign"

Place d'Italie, January 2025

Left: Join the Communist revolution / Middle: Health school transport research justice culture finance leisure information: Public Service Forum  / Right: Billionaires will not defeat us 

February 2025, railing of parc de Choisy

"To change it all, Popular Front" (a left-wing coalition) 

May 2025

"MEETING internationalist revolutionary,"

"They want your retirement and your children... Not a life, not a penny for their wars"

 June 2025, market under the aerial métro

"ACQUIT Anasse Kazib and all supporters of Palestine"

Rue Ponscarme

July 2025

I have lived here 15 years

and have seen no right-wing signs.

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Next,

The May Day parade begins at City Hall

A WALK THROUGH AN OUTSKIRT THAT USED TO BE CHILLING

"FEW PARISIANS ARE FAMILIAR WITH THE BUTTE-AUX-CAILLES..." 

The Bièvre river

"At last she was out of the horrible cave!...

She found herself in an abandoned cabin, and the icy wind blew through its decrepit walls. A moment later she was outside, in a wasteland that sloped steeply toward the valley of the Bièvre.

The opaque black, the black of an underground tomb, was gone. Far away street lights glimmered. She was free! ...

She had one thought only: get away from the bandits... " 

-- Le Caporal by Lucien Victor-Meunier, 1909, shortened. For more extracts, please click. (In French)

A map of 1900 puts the present in perspective.

      Map of about 1900 / zoom

Quarries (please click and scroll down) protected the small houses by preventing heavy construction, and little has changed.

# # #

On a Tuesday, Friday or Sunday morning, start at the market next to place d'Italie:

Stroll up the slope.

(Rue des Cinq-Diamants)

Imagine being a resident, and knowing from the smoke, cries and firing that the Versaillais soldiers are about to climb up this passage:

The passage Barrault. (The arrow is yellow to show a location, here the enemy's path. Red arrows, as below, show our own path.)

Pass the seat of Les Amis de la Commune de Paris* with its mosaic of the rebels' general... 

*Friends of the Commune of Paris

At a grocery turn right to place de la Commune and its

street art:

Rue de la Butte-aux-Cailles

Place de la Commune

Turn back along the street of restaurants, cafés and very few cars...

The restaurant Le Temps des Cérises, named after a famous song that recalls La Commune

When you come to a playground...

 Paul Verlaine park

"Book nest: take one and put another in its place." 

Turn back to the crossroad. Look at the street you recently strolled up... 

Rue des Cinq Diamants seen from the crossroad.

Turn-of-the-19th-century postcard  

The towers will seem like science fiction 

and you will be sorry to leave this peaceful haven.

End of this section.

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Next section,

VIII.

A past that is vanished yet indelible

THE PASSAGE BY WHICH SURVIVORS FLED

ALL OF PARIS HAS CHANGED SINCE LA COMMUNE'S TIME, BUT RARELY AS MUCH ASTHIS NEIGHBORHOOD

A medical Laboratory is on one side of the passage, a medical center is a few steps away and a sculpture is at its center.

Place Souham

Nature softens low cost architecture's aridity

The passage ends with a mosaic of the area's métro map:

A father points his tennis racket as he explains it to his son.

Across the street:

• This cheerful café

Le Père Fecto

• Then an intersection, in the middle of which is island whose greenery was recently enriched (in 2025). On the other side is a City-run kindergarten.

Intersection, rues Jean Coly and Château des Rentiers

Signs in front of it show activist parents:

"We love public school" "Maintain the freedom of school directors not to be saddled by extra tasks."

Next to it is a street closed off to enlarge the greenery (in summer, 2025):

We come to the street

where Sérizier found refuge.

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Next,

City-run residences for seniors and the handicapped