THE BUTTE-AUX-CAILLES ("QUAIL HILLTOP"), SITE OF THE REPRESSION'S WORST FIGHTING
Elsewhere Versaillais officers spared unreliable troops, but they could not leave so strategic a height under Communard control. Government forces were six times more numerous than those of the Communards, but it took four attempts to seize the hill.
-- Lissagary
The Observatory seen from the Butte aux Cailles by Jean Millet, toward 1710 / zoom
"A perspective to delightthe most blasé traveller [...]
The Panthéon's magnificent cupula, the drab and melancholy Val de Grâce, proudly look over an entire town [...] from there, the proportions of the the two monuments appear gigantic [...] to the left, the Observatory seems a dark and gaunt spectre [...] then, from afar, the Invalides's elegant lantern flames between the Luxembourg's blue masses and the gray towers of Saint-Sulpice [...]"
-- The Woman of Thirty by Balzac, 1842
First they avoided the barricade that guarded the entry* to the 13th, by advancing under fire along the islands of the Bièvre:
*Les Gobelins, the famous site of tapestry production since the 17th century and still where the district begins.
 |
| Zoom (please scroll down) |
Then their climb began at this path...
 |
| Parc René Le Gall |
The park is built on enlarged islands.
Across what was then a track...
Boulevard Auguste Blanqui
It linked the gate at the city's entrance with place d'Italie, site of City Hall and the prison where the monks would soon be killed.
To head up the hill under heavy fire, which they took at last toward 4 p.m.
Engraving of the time, gone from the web
The thousand surviving Communards retired to the right bank in good order, where they dispersed to defend their neighborhoods.
# # #
That summit is five minutes
from place de la Commune...
The Brassai garden
No comments:
Post a Comment