Day 6 -- War, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Second Empire
Questions for Today's Presentation:
From mid-1870 through mid-1871 the population of Paris was under great stress, but different parts of the population experienced some of these pressures in different ways. Imagine Parisians from different sectors of society looking back at the previous year from July 1871. What experiences of this year would they share? What aspects of this period would they view from very different perspectives? How would you account for these differences?
What You Need to Do For Today's Presentation
Chronology of events in 1870-1871
[This timeline provides far more detail than you have to remember, but it may be useful in situating events in time.]
Background of the Events of 1870-71 Social Classes in France, 1815-1870 A Massacre in the Rue Transnonian June Days and The Revolution of 1848 Defeat in the Franco-Prussian War Gordon Wright, France in Modern Times Emile Zola's Novel, The Debacle The Journal of Edmond de Goncourt Sarah Bernhardt, My Double Life (a famous actress's memories of the war) August- September, 1870 -- Proclamation of End of the Empire |
The Siege of Paris
Emile Zola's Novel, The Debacle The Journal of Edmond de Goncourt Sarah Bernhardt, My Double Life Alistair Horne, The Fall of Paris Eating During the Siege (Images) |
From OSS
Background to the Struggle over the Commune
Conflict between the Paris Commune and National Government at Versailles
Tensions Between Paris and the New French Goverment
Zola's account of the break between the Paris Commune and the central goverment
Cartoon of "Adolphe Thiers, King of the Capitulators" (Thiers was the leader of the national govenment at Versailles.]
Tuesday, April 4 - Tuesday, April 25, 1871 -- Excerpts from the Journal of Edmond de Goncourt in which he describes life under the Commune and the impact of the shelling of the city by the Versailles forces.
Battle between the Commune and the Versailles Government
Zola on the growing violence between the Commune and the Versailles govenment
Zola on worsening conditions in the Commune
Friday, May 19- Tuesday, May 23, 1871-- Excerpts from the Journal of Edmond de Goncourt in which he describes his experiences of the assault on the city by the forces loyal to the offical government at Versailles
Zola's description of the national goverrnment's attack on the Paris Commune
Zola on the destruction wrought by the communards
John Leighton: " One Day Under the Paris Commune, 1871"
Elie Reclus, The Commune Day by Day
Henry Lissagaray, History of the Paris Commune of 1871 (A 1876 account sympathetic to the Commune)
"Martyrs of the Paris Commune" [This is a Catholic view of the last days of the Commune from today.]
Maxime Du Camp, The Convulsions of Paris (1879)
The Aftermath of the Suppression of the Commune
Adolph Thiers, "The Chief Executive to Prefects and all Civil, Judicial, and Military Authorities"
Friday, May 26 - Wednesday, May 31 -- Excerpts from the Journal of Edmond de Goncourt describing the suppression of the Commune
Other Sources of Information about and Interpretations of the Significance of the Paris Commune
An anarchist's history of Commune told partly in pictures
Chronology of events in 1870-1871.
[This timeline provides far more detail than you have to remember, but it may be useful in situating events in time.]
An overview of the events of 1870-71
Other Sources about the Siege of Paris
"The Siege and Commune of Paris, 1870-1871" -- McCormick Library of Special Collections, Northwestern University (Collection of images from the Commune.)
A Visual Guide to the Political History of France, 1789-1871
Emile Zola's Novel, The Debacle
The Journal of Edmond de Goncourt
Sarah Bernhardt, My Double Life
Alistair Horne, The Fall of Paris
Eating During the Siege (Images)
The French at War with Prussians
The French at War with Themselves