Art in the Paris Commune Dissertation and Masters Research Project

Paris is a contradiction of sorts; it is a city which manages to continue to live its history, while constantly changing, modernising and conserving at the same time. Every road has its story, yet it leaves space for anyone to come along and make their mark; I started my week of research on Rue Lépic off Place Blanche, now famous for the Moulin Rouge, and ended it on Rue Ramponneau, in Belleville, in the North East of the city. These roads served as fitting book-ends to my week.

Rue Lépic is where, on the 18th March, the people of Paris rose up against a government that they felt did not represent them and that was attempting to disarm them; Rue Ramponneau was where the final barricade fell as the government took back control. The 3 months in between came to be known as the Paris Commune, a revolutionary form of governance, in which the working class people of Paris had their first opportunity to govern for themselves, in their own interests.

Place Blanche, where the Barricade des Femmes stood.

I travelled to Paris after having already lived there for my EU-funded ERASMUS year abroad, this time interested in the involvement of women and their relationship with art during this period, for my dissertation. For this, I visited the Bibliothéque Nationale de la France, François Mitterand. Housing essential works on the commune by an organisation set up to preserve its memory, Les Amis de la Commune, this was an extremely important trip, made even more interesting by the beautiful 4 towered library, with a deep set forest-like garden contained within, on the rive-gauche riverside. For the history of Paris as a whole, Musée Carnavalet was a must-visit, despite the revolutionary exhibition being closed, while the Musée Montmartre tells the story of the revolutionary, working class district, and most notably, the Sacré Coeur Cathedral, which was built in this secular, left wing district by the religious ruling classes in revenge for the Commune- it was a reminder of who has the real power, and continues to be a location ignored by locals, despite its beautiful Arabic architecture. You can be sure however, that the tourists make up the numbers.

In the Northern banlieues, it is possible to stumble upon the Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Saint-Denis, not too far from the countries' national football stadium. Here, one finds a large room devoted solely to the Commune- with uniforms, artefacts, testimonies and, most importantly, original newspapers from the Commune. My Masters by Research studies at Royal Holloway will be a study of reporting during the Commune- what the papers focus upon, and whether it is possible to evaluate the effect this had on popular opinion, in comparison with modern revolutions like the Arab Spring.

For much of the week however, I traversed Paris, seeking out the locations of the Commune; it is for this reason I opened this report with a comment on the City and its relationship with its history. The city has gone through many changes. Initially, it was founded originally in Nanterre, North West of where the modern glass skyscrapers of La Défense stand today, before being moved to Île-de-la-Cité, where the modern visitor would find the famous Notre Dame Cathedral. With Vikings being at one point camped on the left bank, and palaces, castles and defences expanding the city to the North with constructions such as Temple, Châtelet and the Louvre, the city grew, as monarchs and governors looked to make their mark. As ex-suburbs such as Montmartre, Belleville and Ménilmontant were absorbed into the city, the needs of the city, which consisted on the most part of very small roads as can still be found in quartiers like le Marais, increased. In reaction, developments were hastened, and this was typified by the building of Pont Neuf, which linked the Left and Right banks via Île-de-la-Cité, and became the social centre of the city, housing trade, theatre, travel and most importantly, gossip. Although given the most credit, Baron Von Haussmann's boulevards, which ploughed through the centre providing vital thoroughfares through the busy city while making the building of barricades on such wide roads next-to impossible, were the culmination of years of urban modernisation. Little has changed in the city centre since; the péripherique which circles the city, and the huge urban banlieue constructions taking place outside, sought to accommodate the vast increase in population post-war, but in reality, there has been little change- and that is why the Paris Commune's post-Haussmann uprising is so key in social and urban history- it took place within the very city that exists today, bar the occasional modem development or façade. The frontiers of the revolution are still there.

The Scene of the last barricade of the Paris Commune.

From Rue Lépic, one can follow the charge of Louise Michel up the butte Montmartre, and find the grave of Henri Murger in the Cemitière, where she lay flowers as her revolution was pushed back. Also, from Place Blanche, you can plot the location of the famous Barricade des Femmes, where anything up to 100 women defended a barricade, before following them being pushed up the butte, where the cannons of Montmartre lay abandoned, to the town hall of the 18th arrondissement where Elisabeth Dmitrieff organised her Union des Femmes, to the Père Lachaise cemetery, where thousands of Communards were gunned down by government machine guns against the Wall of Federals, to, finally, Rue Ramponneau, where, as communard historian Prosper-Oliver Lissagaray reported in third person, the final barricade fell- evidence suggested it was he himself who manned it.

It was a great trip, which enabled me to track the living history, while researching in the museums and libraries, and I am looking forward to delving deeper for my postgraduate studies.