Paris under the Commune The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs)

Public-domain ebook

Paris under the Commune The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs)

Name: Paris under the Commune The Seventy-Three Days of the Second Siege; with Numerous Illustrations, Sketches Taken on the Spot, and Portraits (from the Original Photographs)
Author: John Leighton

by John Leighton

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Subjects

Paris (France) -- History -- Commune, 1871

In: History - European·History - Modern (1750+)·History - Warfare

Public-domain ebook sourced from Project Gutenberg #10861.

About this book

John Leighton’s work is a sprawling illustrated chronicle of the Paris Commune of 1871, presented as a “seventy‑three‑day” account of the second siege. The opening pages set a tone of urgent reportage, beginning with a Victor Hugo quotation that frames socialism as a threat to France’s symbols, then moving into Leighton’s own preface where he describes finding a pamphlet at a bomb‑scarred railway station and expanding it into a “French château” of text, plates, and sketches. The book is organized into a detailed contents list that runs from the October 1870 invasion of the Hôtel de Ville through the final collapse of the Commune, interspersed with numerous portraits, allegorical plates, and maps that document the destruction of monuments, the personalities of generals and officials, and the everyday turmoil of Parisian streets.

The narrative voice is that of a contemporary observer‑journalist, mixing factual dispatches with vivid, sometimes polemical commentary. Written in the late‑nineteenth‑century style of illustrated history, it combines dense enumeration of events with dramatic description, reflecting the period’s fascination with political upheaval and visual documentation. Readers who relish primary‑source accounts of revolutionary France, scholars of 19th‑century political movements, or anyone interested in richly illustrated, detailed histories of the Commune will find Leighton’s exhaustive, picture‑laden record both informative and evocative.

Who appears in this book

Victor HugoMiddle‑aged man with flowing beard, crinkled forehead, 19th‑century writer attire, dark coat and waistcoat
NapoleonShort statured officer in grey greatcoat, bicorne hat, hand tucked in coat, stern expression
MaratRevolutionary figure, long hair, simple white shirt, gaunt face, holding a quill, 18th‑century attire

The opening · free to read

London:

1871.

Socialism, or the Red Republic, is all one; for it would tear down the tricolour and set up the red flag. It would make penny pieces out of the Column Vendôme. It would knock down the statue of Napoleon and raise up that of Marat in its stead. It would suppress the Académie, the École Polytechnique, and the Legion of Honour. To the grand device Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity, it would add “Ou la mort.” It would bring about a general bankruptcy. It would ruin the rich without enriching the poor. It would destroy labour, which gives to each one his bread. It would abolish property and family. It would march about with the heads of the proscribed on pikes, fill the prisons with the suspected, and empty them by massacres. It would convert France into the country of gloom. It would strangle liberty, stifle the arts, silence thought, and deny God. It would bring into action these two fatal machines, one of which never works without the other—the assignat press and the guillotine. In a word, it would do in cold blood what the men of 1793 did in fever, and after the grand horrors which our fathers saw, we should have the horrible in all that was low and small.

(VICTOR HUGO, 1848.)

PREFACE.

Early in June of the present year I was making notes and sketches, without the least idea of what I should do with them. I was at the Mont-Parnasse Station of the Western Railway, awaiting a train from Paris to St. Cloud. Our fellow passengers, as we discovered afterwards, were principally prisoners for Versailles; the guards, soldiers; and the line, for two miles at least, appeared desolation and ruin.

The façade of the station, a very large one, was pockmarked all over by Federal bullets, whilst cannon balls had cut holes through the stone wall as if it had been cheese, and gone down the line, towards Cherbourg or Brest! The restaurant below was nearly annihilated, the counters, tables, and chairs being reduced to a confused heap. But there was a book-stall and on that book-stall reposed a little work, entitled the “Bataille des Sept Jours,” a brochure which a friend bought and gave to me, saying, “_Voilà la texte de vos croquis_,” From seven days my ideas naturally wandered to seventy-three—the duration of the reign of the Commune—and then again to two hundred and twenty days—that included the Commune of 1871 and its antecedents. Hence this volume, which I liken to a French château, to which I have added a second storey and wings.

And now that the house is finished, I must render my obligations to M. Mendès and numerous French friends, for their kind assistance and valuable aid, including my confrères of “_The Graphic_,” who have allowed me to enliven the walls with pictures from their stores; and last, and not least, my best thanks are due to an English Peer, who placed at my disposal his unique collection of prints and journals of the period bearing upon the subject—a subject I am pretty familiar with. Powder has done its work, the smell of petroleum has passed away, the house that called me master has vanished from the face of the earth, and my concierge and his wife are reported fusillés by the Versaillais; and to add to the disaster, my rent was paid in advance, having been deposited with a notaire prior to the First Siege.... But my neighbours, where are they? In my immediate neighbourhood six houses were entirely destroyed, and as many more half ruined. I can only speak of one friend, an amiable and able architect, who, alas! remonstrated in person, and received a ball from a revolver through the back of his neck. His head is bowed for life. He has lost his pleasure and his treasure, a valuable museum of art,—happily they could not burn his reputation, or the monument of his life—a range of goodly folio volumes that exist “_pour tous_.”

LONDON, 1871.

Appendix

Chronology of the Commune Memoir of Rochefort. The 18th of March The Prussians and the Commune Memoir of Gambon Memoir of Lullier Memoir of Protot Translation from Victor Hugo Note of Jourde Last Proclamations of the Commune Note of Férré The Hostages—Gendarmes, &c. President Bonjean Note of Urbain. Devastations of Paris Official Report of General Ladmirault Ammunition expended on Second Siege of Paris List of Monuments and Buildings destroyed Index to Plan—Damage by Fire, &c.

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