page_title: Paris Commune
section_title: 23 May: Battle for Montmartre; burning of Tuileries Palace
hierarchical_section_title: Paris Commune / "Bloody Week" / 23 May: Battle for Montmartre; burning of Tuileries Palace
caption_attribution_description: English: Les Ruines de Paris et de ses Environs 1870-1871: Cent Photographies: Premier Volume. Par A. Liébert, text par Alfred d'Aunay. Author: Alfred d'Aunay (French) Date: 1870–71 Medium: Albumen silver prints from glass negatives Dimensions: Images approx.: 19 x 25 cm (7 1/2 x 9 13/16 in.), or the reverse Mounts: 32.8 x 41.3 cm (12 15/16 x 16 1/4 in.), or the reverse Classification: Albums Credit Line: Joyce F. Menschel Photography Library Fund, 2007 Accession Number: 2007.454.1.1–.33 Français&#160;: Palais des Tuileries, Pavillon de l'Horloge, http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8433354d/f31.zoom
context_page_description: The Paris Commune was a radical socialist, anti-religious, and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. The Franco-Prussian War had led to the capture of Emperor Napoleon III in September 1870, the collapse of the Second French Empire, and the beginning of the Third Republic. Because Paris was under siege for four months, the Third Republic moved its capital to Tours. A hotbed of working-class radicalism, Paris was primarily defended during this time by the radical troops of the National Guard rather than regular Army troops. Paris surrendered to the Prussians on 28 January 1871, and in February Adolphe Thiers, the new chief executive of the French national government, signed an armistice with Prussia that disarmed the Army but not the National Guard.
  On 18 March, soldiers of the Commune's National Guard killed two French army generals, and the Commune refused to accept the authority of the French government. The Commune governed Paris for two months, until it was suppressed by the regular French Army during "La semaine sanglante" beginning on 21 May 1871.
context_section_description: On 23 May the next objective of the army was the butte of Montmartre, where the uprising had begun. The National Guard had built and manned a circle of barricades and makeshift forts around the base of the butte. The garrison of one barricade, at Chaussee Clignancourt, was defended in part by a battalion of about thirty women, including Louise Michel, the celebrated "Red Virgin of Montmartre", who had already participated in many battles outside the city. She was seized by regular soldiers and thrown into the trench in front of the barricade and left for dead. She escaped and soon afterwards surrendered to the army, to prevent the arrest of her mother. The battalions of the National Guard were no match for the army; by midday on the 23rd the regular soldiers were at the top of Montmartre, and the tricolor flag was raised over the Solferino tower. The soldiers captured 42 guardsmen and several women, took them to the same house on Rue Rosier where generals Clement-Thomas and Lecomte had been executed, and shot them. On the Rue Royale, soldiers seized the formidable barricade around the Madeleine church; 300 prisoners captured with their weapons were shot there, the largest of the mass executions of prisoners.
  On the same day, having had little success fighting the army, units of national guardsmen began to take revenge by burning public buildings symbolising the government. The guardsmen led by Paul Brunel, one of the original leaders of the Commune, took cans of oil and set fire to buildings near the Rue Royale and the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. Following the example set by Brunel, guardsmen set fire to dozens of other buildings on Rue Saint-Florentin, Rue de Rivoli, Rue de Bac, Rue de Lille, and other streets.
  The Tuileries Palace, which had been the residence of most of the monarchs of France from Henry IV to Napoleon III, was defended by a garrison of some three hundred National Guard with thirty cannon placed in the garden. They had been engaged in a day-long artillery duel with the regular army. At about seven in the evening, the commander of the garrison, Jules Bergeret, gave the order to burn the palace. The walls, floors, curtains and woodwork were soaked with oil and turpentine, and barrels of gunpowder were placed at the foot of the grand staircase and in the courtyard, then the fires were set. The fire lasted 48 hours and gutted the palace, except for the southernmost part, the Pavillon de Flore. Bergeret sent a message to the Hotel de Ville: "The last vestiges of royalty have just disappeared. I wish that the same will happen to all the monuments of Paris."
  The Richelieu library of the Louvre, connected to the Tuileries, was also set on fire and entirely destroyed. The rest of the Louvre was saved by the efforts of the museum curators and fire brigades. Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, later a lover of Eleanor Marx, asserted that many of the fires were caused by artillery from the French army, and that women in the Commune were wrongly blamed for arson. The consensus of later historians is that most of the major fires were started by the National Guard and several organised Communard groups; but that few if any fires were started by the Army or by local women. Furthermore, besides public buildings, the National Guard also started fires at the homes of a number of residents associated with the regime of Napoleon III, such as that of the historian and playwright Prosper Merimee, the author of Carmen.
caption: Ruins of the Tuileries Palace, burned by the Communards on 23 May
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