THE SLAUGHTER OF THE WRETCHED

THE ARMY'S BARBARISM IS CLEAR FROM THE START

(WITH THE FIRST COMBAT ON APRIL 3)

Thiers takes back the hilltop he forgot and its cannons stop a Communard march on Versailles:

Told by Alain Decaux (a well-known narrator), 2019, YouTube (in French)

Exhausted and separated from his troops, their leader Gustave Flourens takes refuge in an inn. Denounced, he comes out unarmed and...

"A police captain strikes him on the skull with such force that he turns it into epaulettes, says a policeman with a sense of humor."

-- Lissagary, 

Flourens's biography, Gustave Flourens, the Red Knight, 1987, ebook (in French)

Raspu'team

The soldiers take his corpse to Versailles in a cart with a ton of manure. The killer becomes a judge and obtains the Legion of Honor. 

Versailles thinks Communards are criminals to whom rules

regarding p.o.w.s do not apply:

• "Bloody Week" begins by shooting 300 guards who have surrendered at the barricade of place Concorde (on May 23).

Photographer unknown / zoom

The barricade at place Vendôme, a few steps from place Concorde

• "The rumor that furies threw flaming petrol led any badly-dressed woman to be dragged to the nearest wall and shot." 

-- Lissagary

"Commune Type" by Lefman, 1885, zoom

• The Versaillais pursue guards even into the catacombs, "with dogs and torches, but fear took over." Soldiers lost in the maze of tunnels expect to die until a prisoner leads them out. They spare his life but "kept it secret ... their masters would have punished them by death."

-- Louise Michel

Fighting in the Catacombs, Internet (gone), City museum (Musée Carnavalet), not exhibited at the times of my visits.

 

• Estimates of the killings, which range from 5,500 to 40,000, are impossible to verify since bodies were thrown into mass graves or the river, or heaped up and burned. Nor do we know the number that died from wounds, in prisons or in deportation, not to mention those killed in the war with Prussia or during the siege. For recent and serious investigation, please click and scroll down.

Fighting  / 

Illustration, Internet

"Passers-by remove corpses, as required after an action"

By Adolphe Eugène Disderi, the Emperor's photographer, Saint-Denis City Museum

-- A high school teacher's presentation: Please click and scroll down

A surreal city

• Flowerpots crown the barricades. The May weather is beautiful, and guards' wives bring picnics.   

• Cafés and restaurants stay open, even when the fighting is so intense that "there's hardly time for a drink at the bar." 

 --  Both remarks, Vallès

 

Soon...

• "The stench of the immense graveyard drew a horrible swarm of charnal-house flies to the defunct city; the victors feared an epidemic and suspended the executions."

-- Louise Michel

"Summary execution of insurgents on ... [illegible] Street on May 25" /  Internet (gone), more information illegible

• Memories told Hemingway 50 years later

"They were the descendants of the Communards [... ] they knew who had shot their fathers, their brothers and their friends when the Versailles troops took the town after the Commune and executed anyone they could catch with calloused hands." (Bolding mine)

-- The Snows of Kilimanjaro

Hemingway came to Paris in the 1920's. and lived in the then blue-collar 5th district.

"Examining the Hands of Communard Prisoners in Belleville" / Internet, same comment as above. 

Photos rendues accessibles par des professeurs de lycée :  cliquez et déroulez la page.

• "The Senate and the surrounding streets looked like a vast battlefield after victory. The dead were spread out in the sun. Blood stained the streets. No corner was without two or three cadavers." 

-- Mes Cahiers rouges. Souvenirs de la Commune de Maxime Vuillaume, ed. 2011, p. 54

• Burials in the cemeteries of Paris, the suburbs and Versailles plus corpses thrown into mass graves or the Seine, or piled up and burned, bring an estimate of 20, 000-30,000 dead.  

"One counts those who die on one side only;
not on the other side,
which would be impossible.

-- Louise Michel

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Next,

Escape by socializing with the enemy