The Wall of the Communards

The Paris Commune governed the city for seventy-two days in the spring of 1871. Government troops retook Paris street by street in what became known as the Bloody Week; the last defenders fought among the tombs of Père-Lachaise on the night of 27 May.

The 147 who were captured were shot the next morning against the cemetery wall and buried in a trench where they fell. Estimates of the dead across the whole week run from six to twenty thousand. The wall is still a place where flowers are left every May.