Barricades spread as Versailles forces advance

Members opposing the Committee of Public Safety announced that they would withdraw from council meetings and work in their districts. They objected to concentrating power in an executive committee.

The Vendôme Column, viewed as a monument to militarism and imperial conquest, was demolished in a public ceremony. Gustave Courbet had earlier proposed moving the monument, but later became associated...

A major explosion at an ammunition works killed and injured workers and nearby residents. Communards suspected sabotage, although the precise cause remained disputed.

The Commune directed that religious symbols and instruction be removed from schools and accelerated the creation of secular education. The policy accompanied efforts to improve education for girls.

Government troops entered through the Porte de Saint-Cloud after discovering that part of the western defences was unguarded. Their entry began the Bloody Week and the final destruction of the...

Government troops captured Montmartre, the district where the uprising had begun. Jarosław Dąbrowski was mortally wounded during the fighting as the Commune lost much of northern and western Paris.

As government forces advanced, fires destroyed the Hôtel de Ville and other public buildings. Responsibility for individual fires and their military purpose became a major subject of political...

Communard officials executed Archbishop Georges Darboy and several other hostages in La Roquette prison while government forces carried out mass executions of captured Communards.

Several thousand Communards resisted a much larger government force around the Butte-aux-Cailles. Versailles troops eventually took the position and continued eastward.

Charles Delescluze, the Commune’s delegate for war, walked unarmed toward a barricade at the Place du Château-d’Eau and was killed by government fire.