"BETRAYED!"

ON MARCH 18 TROOPS LEAVE THEIR BARRACKS AT 2 A.M.

TO TAKE BACK THE CANNONS BY SURPRISE 

No horses so no whinnies. The muffled sound of marching boots does not wake the sleeping city.

Taking the cannons on March 18, 1871 in "The Execution" by J-P Dethorey, 1994, Saint-Denis City Museum

A guard on duty on the Montmartre hilltop asks to see the marching orders: A shot goes off and he is mortally wounded.

The New Babylon

He dies a week later, saying that his life is well worth the upheaval to which the shooting leads. 

"Betrayed!" cries a schoolteacher as she tears up the slope. 

Louise Michel enters history:

Louise Michel, the Red Virgin, a graphic novel by Mary and Bryon Tolbat (La librairie Vuibert), 2016 (French version)

"In the lightening dawn the bell tolled; we rushed up the hill, knowing that at the summit an army was ready for battle. We expected to die for freedom.

We seemed transported above the earth. We dead, Paris would rise. At certain hours crowds are the human ocean's avant-garde. 

A white light enveloped the summit, a splendid dawn of deliverance."  

-- Louise Michel

Horses arrive only later, and the soldiers start dragging the cannons toward town. But when the crowd seizes them and drags them back to the summit, they do not resist.

 

# # #

A soldier smoking and standing by becomes a stock figure : many future Communards believe that soldiers will not hurt them.

May 22, 1871. A Woman Conducting a Machine Gun on place Turenne, "Le Monde Illustré"/ zoom (please scroll down) 

 

Paris during the Commune : Building a Barricade on March 18  

-- Claretie

# # #

Tolling bells spread the news and barricades spring up throughout the east, despite the wide, straight streets built to prevent them.

An officer is shot at the foot of the Montmartre hill:

(On place Pigalle)

Le Monde illustré, March 25 1871 / zoom (please scroll down)

As church bells toll, guards' drumbeats call to arms.

That ambiance explains what follows.

But first, Louise Michel.

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Love humanizes an icon