After Napoleon III was captured at Sedan in September 1870, the new Government of National Defense kept fighting and Prussian forces encircled Paris. The wealthy fled, the Seine froze at minus 15 degrees Celsius, and Parisians ate the elephants, antelope, wolves and kangaroos of their zoo, then rats from the sewers. The defense fell to the 300,000-strong National Guard, which elected its own officers. After the January 1871 armistice the government let the enemy parade through Paris and demanded back rents and debts at once. Parisians had bought 400 bronze cannons by subscription and hauled them to Montmartre, and on March 18 Adolphe Thiers sent troops to seize them but they forgot the horses.
Women fetching bread raised the alarm, soldiers refused to fire, two generals were killed, and Thiers withdrew the government and army to Versailles. The elected Commune Council of Marxists, followers of Proudhon and Jacobins abolished child labor, separated church and state, let workers run abandoned factories and returned pawned tools, while closing churches and taking the Archbishop of Paris hostage. On May 21 Marshal Patrice de MacMahon’s army of over 150,000 broke in. During Bloody Week Communards burned the Tuileries and the Hôtel de Ville, toppled the Vendôme Column, and killed about 100 hostages including the archbishop.
- During the siege the only ways out of Paris were hot air balloon and carrier pigeon.
- Louise Michel, called the Red Virgin, served as a medic and offered to go to Versailles to kill Thiers.
- Soldiers shot people on the spot for gunpowder stains on their hands, and 10,000 to 20,000 Communards died against about 1,000 troops.
- More than 43,000 people were taken prisoner and thousands were deported to New Caledonia.
- Lenin reportedly danced in the snow when his government lasted 73 days, one day longer than the Commune.
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