He used the famous term later taken up by Lenin and the Bolsheviks: the Commune was, he said, the first "dictatorship of the proletariat", a state run by workers and in the interests of workers. 18 Becker, Jean-Jacques, Les Fraafais dans la grande gutrre (Paris, 1980). Il retrace l'année 1870 durant laquelle la France souffrit parallèlement d'une guerre contre la Prusse (ancienne Allemagne) et d'une guerre civile à Paris.Biographie et informations sur l'auteur. The only communication with the outside world was by balloon, carrier pigeon, or letters packed in iron balls floated down the Seine. They were expected to converge at the end of 24 hours at the gates of the Palace of Versailles. [64], Since every able-bodied man in Paris was obliged to be a member of the National Guard, the Commune on paper had an army of about 200,000 men on 6 May; the actual number was much lower, probably between 25,000 and 50,000 men. The majority, including the Blanquists and the more radical revolutionaries, supported by Le Vengeur of Pyat and Le Père Duchesne of Vermersch, supported giving the military priority. Genton was given a list of hostages and selected six names, including Georges Darboy, the Archbishop of Paris and three priests. But our good Frenchmen hasten to pull down their house as soon as the chimney takes fire..." Near the end of the Commune, Flaubert wrote to her again, "As for the Commune, which is about to die out, it is the last manifestation of the Middle Ages." [42] Their participation included building barricades and caring for wounded fighters. Finally, on the extreme left, there were the radical republicans and socialists, a group that included Louis Blanc, Léon Gambetta and Georges Clemenceau. He studied the question of the number of dead, and studied the records of the office of inspection of the Paris cemeteries, which was in charge of burying the dead. [92] Thousands of Communards, including leaders such as Felix Pyat, succeeded in slipping out of Paris before the end of the battle, and went into exile; some 3,500 going to England, 2,000–3,000 to Belgium, and 1,000 to Switzerland. Long an opponent of the Prussian war, Thiers persuaded Parliament that peace was necessary. Between 24 May and 6 September, the office of inspection of cemeteries reported that an additional 1,328 corpses were exhumed from temporary graves at 48 sites, including 754 corpses inside the old quarries near Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, for a total of 6,667. Dates historiques, événements, personnages. A Revision". On 5 May, he was appointed commander of the Commune's whole army. On 26 January, they signed a ceasefire and armistice, with special conditions for Paris. Wounded men were being tended in the halls, and some of the National Guard officers and Commune members were changing from their uniforms into civilian clothes and shaving their beards, preparing to escape from the city. Function: _error_handler, File: /home/ah0ejbmyowku/public_html/application/views/page/index.php Paris is not complaining about the shooting of the members of the Commune, but of innocent people. The fires of Paris have pushed over the limit the exasperation of the army. Little resistance was encountered in the west of Paris, but the army moved forward slowly and cautiously, in no hurry. As soon as he heard the news of the uprising, he made his way to the railway station, where national guardsmen were already stopping and checking the identity of departing passengers. Those convicted by the jury would become "hostages of the people of Paris." [75], On 23 May the next objective of the army was the butte of Montmartre, where the uprising had begun. [86], On the afternoon of 26 May, after six hours of heavy fighting, the regular army captured the Place de la Bastille. These included: The decrees separated the church from the state, appropriated all church property to public property, and excluded the practice of religion from schools. [124], Another French historian, Paul Lidsky, argues that Thiers felt urged by mainstream newspapers and leading intellectuals to take decisive action against ‘the social and democratic vermin’ (Le Figaro), ‘those abominable ruffians’ (Comtesse de Ségur).