Paris elects the Council of the Commune

A council of ministers led by Adolphe Thiers ordered the army to remove cannons held by the National Guard in working-class districts and to arrest leading revolutionaries. The decision prepared the...

Government troops tried to remove National Guard artillery from Montmartre and Belleville. Residents and guards resisted, many soldiers fraternized with the crowd, and the operation collapsed. The...

After troops refused orders to fire on the crowd, General Claude Lecomte and former general Jacques Léonard Clément-Thomas were seized and shot. Their deaths became a central charge in the...

With the national government established at Versailles, the Central Committee of the National Guard announced elections for a new communal government and presented its rule as temporary.

Supporters of the Versailles government marched against the Central Committee. A confrontation near the Place Vendôme ended in gunfire and casualties, deepening the division between revolutionary...

The newly elected Council of the Commune began its work. The Central Committee of the National Guard prepared to transfer governmental authority to the elected council.

Before a large crowd at the Hôtel de Ville, the elected Commune was formally proclaimed. The red flag became the symbol of the new revolutionary municipal government.

The Council organized its administration through commissions responsible for war, finance, justice, security, labour, public services, education, food, external relations and executive coordination.

The Commune declared that the National Guard, composed of armed citizens, would replace conscription and the permanent army. This measure expressed its conception of popular self-government.

To relieve households affected by the siege and economic crisis, the Commune remitted the final three quarters of rent owed since October 1870. It also suspended sales of pledged goods at the...