The Madness of Paris
- Title:
- The Madness of Paris
- Alternate Title:
- The Madness of Paris
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Nast, Thomas
- Date:
- 1871
- Posted Date:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2469.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2469_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1870 - 1899
- Subject:
- Other War & Peace
Pictorial - Measurement:
- 40 x 28 page (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- In May 1871, following a "bloody week" (semaine sanglante") of violent combat, the regular French Army extinguished the three-month revolt by the anarchists, socialists and others that had established the Paris Commune at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. Almost immediately thereafter, Harper's Weekly spotlighted these events with extensive text and illustrations reminding Americans of the deadly costs of civil war, including a large bird's-eye view referencing the destruction of significant Paris buildings and monuments.
The Franco-Prussian War began in mid-July 1870. By September, the Germans had achieved a striking series of victories, most notably at Metz and Seden, capturing over 100,000 French soldiers and Napoleon III himself. The government of the Second French Empire collapsed, and the legislature proclaimed a Third Republic with a Government of National Defense. By the end of September, the Germans had surrounded and besieged Paris, cutting off its communications and its access to food and other vital supplies. In early January 1871, the German's began to bombard the city, and Paris formally capitulated on January 28. The Germans agreed to an armistice, paraded in victory through the city, and withdrew again pending negotiation of a peace treaty.
Throughout the war, and particularly after the collapse of the Empire and during the siege, the great majority of the military forces defending Paris were members of the local National Guard, rather than the regular forces of the French Army. The Guard members were drawn primarily from working class neighborhoods, and they were relatively untrained and resistant to discipline. In March 1871, after several earlier failed attempts, radical groups and National Guard forces succeeded in revolting against the regular Army, which withdrew to Versailles where the new government had already relocated. The victors established the Paris Commune and elected a Council which governed the city during the chaotic period that followed.
Regrouped and reinforced, the regular French Army attacked and finally recaptured Paris during a week of deadly and destructive fighting, May 21-28, 1871. Thousands of soldiers, hostages, and communards were killed, many by summary execution. As it became clear that their cause was lost, the defenders began to destroy public buildings and monuments including the Tuileries Palace, the Richelieu library of the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, and the Palais de Justice. (The column honoring Napoleon in the Place Vendome had been pulled down and shattered several weeks earlier.) Efforts to burn Notre Dame, the Palais Royal, and other buildings were unsuccessful.
Harper's Weekly promptly brought this story to an American public still trying to recover from its own Civil War. The entire front page of the June 10 issue is a cartoon by Thomas Nast (ID #2469.01). In it, a group of German generals stand on a balcony in Berlin, and far away in the landscape behind them smoke rises from a burning city, "Paris." One of the generals gestures toward the scene and says to Prussian Chancellor Bismarck, "They are doing unto themselves what they would have done unto us." Inside, the magazine describes the horror: "From 50,000 to 60,000 dead bodies are said to be lying unburied in the streets, houses, and cellars. One-fourth of the city has been destroyed by fire and bombardment." P.523.
The centerpiece of the reporting was a full-page, detailed "Bird's-Eye View of Paris Showing the Principal Public Buildings Destroyed by the Communists" (ID #2469.02). The view shows the city from a point above the Arc de Triomphe, looking southeast along the Seine toward the Place de la Concorde, the Louvre, the Hotel de Ville, and beyond. While the text contains a lengthy description of specific destructive acts, the map shows virtually all the principal buildings and monuments of Paris without differentiating between those destroyed and those surviving. Similarly, the article includes five large illustrations of Parisian landmarks, some destroyed (the Palais de Justice) and some surviving (the Opera House).
Harper's concludes by roundly condemning the Commune as "a terrible dumb and blind protest against the existing order . . . . The idea of local independence, which was its redeeming thought, was lost in the wildest license and riot, and the expiring struggles of its present effort were marked by the attempted destruction of one of the greatest and most interesting cities in the world." Ibid.
For other maps in the Collection related to the war, Search > "Franco-Prussian."
Cornell University Library is pleased to present this digital collection of Persuasive Maps, the originals of which have been collected and described by the private collector PJ Mode. The descriptive information in the “Collector’s Notes” has been supplied by Mr. Mode and does not necessarily reflect the views of Cornell University. - Source:
- Harper's Weekly, June 10, 1871.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.