THE CANNONS ON THE HILLS

GUARDS DEPOSIT THE CANNON ON THE HEIGHTS OF 

MONTMARTRE AND BELLEVILLE, FROM WHICH THEY

DOMINATE THE TOWN

Zoom

Signs of their importance:

• A Socialist newspaper's issue for the first Bastille Day, in 1883, associates a drawing of the people seizing the Bastille cannons with taking those of the government in 1871: 

Cover of Le Cri du peuple, reproduced and commented in the blog Ma Commune de Paris

Former Communards choose the image in hommage to both La Commune and the Revolution. (The difference between the two events: The engraving shows only men moving the Bastille cannons, while women, children and the elderly also seized them from the government.)

• A Soviet movie shows their menace:

The New Babylon, 1929

# # #

For military, political and symbolic reasons the government makes retrieving the cannons a priority, but that's easier said than done:  

• Even in normal times, moving 371 bronze cannons from the outskirts would take two full days, 10,000 men and 15,000 horses. 

• Montmartre's distance and it's steep hill prevent building the usual arteries. Residents aligned on narrow streets would be able to cut horses' harnesses and block cannons' wheels:

The New Babylon

• There is no space for soldiers to assemble and be isolated from the crowd.

• Conscripts' loyalty is uncertain: Those sent to suppress the February demonstrations at Bastille fraternize with the crowd, and some not only let guards seize the cannon, but help them seize arms in depots.

-- Tombs, 49-50

# # #

Miracle: The freezing, unpaid guards agree to return the cannons and the mayor of Montmartre (Clemenceau) offers to negotiate the terms.

(On March 16)

"In the Trenches" by Alphonse de Neuville, 1874 / zoom

The generals meet Thiers and urge him to accept those talks. 

(On March 17)

He is aware of the danger of mixing troops and population, even including a picture, in his History of the French Revolution:

"The French guards delivered from the Abbey" 

"Mixing with the population every day,* they [the Guards] succumbed to its seductions." 

-- Bold added  .

*As had conscripts billeted with Parisians during the siege.

The generals warn him on Friday but the Assembly's first meeting in Versailles is on Monday, and Thiers needs a victory.

On Saturday March 18
 the people of Montmartre wake 
to find soldiers dragging the cannons down the hill.

End of this section.

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Next section,
IV.3.1.b.
Not an insurrection — an implosion