COMMUNARD FIGHTERS

THE HILLTOP LOST, GENERAL WALERY WROBLEWSKY REFUSED THE COMMAND OF THE REMAINING TROOPS AND FOUGHT ON AS AN ORDINARY SOLDIER:

        Mosaic outside the seat of Les amis de la Commune

The Polish nobleman exiled for participating in the insurrection of 1863 had survived in Paris by lighting street lamps, then as a typographer.

La Commune defeated, he managed to escape Paris and fled to England. With the help of Marx, Engels and Polish refugees he founded a printing establishment and published Lissagary's account. He returned to Paris in 1885, where he died deeply admired by the Polish community but extremely poor (in 1908). 

-- Unsigned article in a publication of Les Amis de la Commune, n° 33, 2008 (in French) 

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The legendary 101st battalion: "Rage alone commands those demons," of the 13th or Mouffetard,* "undisciplined, hoarse, with torn clothes and banner, who mutiny if they rest and as soon as

they have been withdrawn from battle, must be plunged into it again."

  -- Lissagary

*Where Hemingway hears Communard memories.

Serizier, the commander:

       Cover photo

            Elements of ,a History of the Commune in the 13th Arrondissement by Gérard Conte, 1989 (in French)

 

Marie Jean-Baptiste Sérizier wears his cap boldly to the side and looks intensely into the camera as he leans against his sword.  

A Communist tanner and militant,

he blustered, drank, beat his wife

and was an extremely brave and effective soldier.

For his last fight,

please click back.

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Next,

The Communard spirit continues