Version française
 

Rebel Paris

Insurrections and their impact
  • "THE" Revolution begins this tour
Catalyst: the storming the Bastille prison, symbol of tyranny (July 14, 1789)

 

http://unexpectedparis.blogspot.com/

"How France became a republic", "Rebel Paris", July 14 2011

 

 

• To visit on your own: Marie-Antoinette's cell (Conciergerie museum, once a prison)

 

• To visit with us: the

    º Palais-Royal gardens, where the Revolution began

   º Places where major events took place (Bastille, Hôtel de Ville, Concorde, Nation)

    º The Tribunal, for the site where Marie-Antoinette was probably tried.

    º Picpus Cemetery, for victims of the guillotine.

 

We bring images that illustrate our account, or show places that have disappeared.

 

 

 
The guillotine at the Place de la Concorde
  • Summary:

 

It's the 1780's and you're an entrepreneur. Nobles (hereditary landowners with a separate legal status and privileges) control the government, put a lid on your profits – and don't pay taxes.

 

Isn't your reaction,  "Get out of the way" ?

 

Nascent capitalists' seizure of power is the crux of  "French Revolution" (1789-1795).

 

This transformation was immense. Its roots go back centuries (for one sign of it, please CLICK) and it was complete only in 1830. 

 

Please scroll down...

 

 
"Liberty leading the people", by Delacroix, 1831, at the Louvre

 

Delacroix's iconic painting lyrically celebrates the alliance between middle- and underclass Parisians, during three days of victorious street-fighting in 1830.

 

It is the most famous painting by a French artist.  

 

Victory liberated capitalism from landowners' restraints. The new government's slogan was "Enrich yourselves" and the Industrial Revolution took off.

 

The poor were forgotten. Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables" describes them. 

 

 

 

  • The conflict then became that of capital and labor. It took workers several generations to learn to organize, a change that the brutal repression of revolts helped bring about

 

 

 

There are no top-hats in this painting of Parisian fighting in 1848.

 

This insurrection broke out in 1848 and spread throughout the Continent. Its repression brought in a law-and-order government (the "Second Empire", 1852-1870).

 

That government created wide avenues for marching troops and large spaces in working-class areas for massing them (the esplanade in front of Notre-Dame and the City Hall and the Places de la République and de la Nation).   

 

For these sites now: "Occupy Paris, a future with a past" in "Rebel Paris", October 15 2011: http://unexpectedparis.blogspot.com/

 

 

  • The most tragic of all Paris's uprisings was that of the Commune (in 1871)
From euphoria...

 

In 72 days (February-May 1871), it enacted legislation that gave women the vote and pay equal to that of men, abolished child labor and established free, secular education and tore down the column that glorified Napoleon on the Place Vendôme, an ode to war. 
to calamity

  

Such progressive and pacifist measures horrified the powers-that be. During "the bloody week" (May 22-28, 1871) they suppressed the Commune, massacring at least 20,000 Insurgents. Some rebels set fire to much of the city: the Tuileries Palace was never rebuilt, the Hôtel de Ville is a copy and the area around it remained in ruins until the 1890's. 

 

 

  • The Sacré-Coeur looms over working-class Paris, a reminder of its defeat

 

 

Given the smaller houses of the time, the church must have been visible from very far away.

 

Begun in 1874 (three years after the Commune was suppressed), it occupies the site where that insurrection broke out. One purpose:  "...to save France from God's punishment for having encouraged the revolutionary spirit in the world."  

 

Another purpose: to humiliate the insurgents by rubbing in their defeat. The low houses of the time meant that residents of working-class eastern Paris were obliged to look it every day.  

 

 

 

  • That background leads to these discussions

 

• Insurrections' effect on the beauty of Paris

 

The wide avenues meant for marching troops give the modern city much of its elegance and coherence. But magnificent buildings were torn down in the process. The end of the Commune meant more destruction still.

 

The Paris we see is in part the result of terrifying conflict.

 

• Paris's upheavals have indeed "encouraged the revolutionary spirit in the world" 

 

Russian revolutionaries would study the Paris Commune and sang the "Marseillaise" (the national anthem, which is ardently revolutionary) until 1917. During the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) a battalion was called "The Paris Commune". 

 

The Socialist presence was one reason why Lenin, Chou En Lai, Ho Chi Minh... settled in Paris. Opponents to authoritarian regimes still do. 

 

 

*     *

 

 

* You may be used to a historical approach that stresses a multitude of causes and focuses on political change. Wikipedia's account of the French Revolution is an example: it leaves out the transformation from feudalism to capitalism and its "Timeline" is a mainly a list of governments' names and dates. You can decide which view makes most sense...

 

 

 

Credits : storming the Bastille / engraving of the time ; drawing / Robespierre's execution / Wikipedia; fighting in 1848 / high school textbook; Commune starts / sign announcing City Hall exhibit photos, photo Catherine Aubin; Paris in flames / painting at that exhibit, photo Catherine Aubin; Sacre-Cœur / Catherine Aubin

 

 

Unexpected Paris guided tours