The Père-Lachaise quiz
The Paris Commune
The ten questions in this series
The Communards' Wall and the Bloody Week, at the far end of Division 76. Each question stands on its own, with its story — or can be played as part of the full series.
- On 27 May 1871, at the end of the Bloody Week, around 147 Communard fighters were shot against a cemetery wall before being thrown into a mass grave. In which division is this wall, which has since become a memorial site?
- The man who directed the bloody repression of the Paris Commune in 1871 himself rests at Père-Lachaise, a few hundred metres from the wall where the Communards were shot. Who is he?
- This member of the Paris Commune wrote, in June 1871, just after the crushing of the uprising, the words of a song that would become the anthem of the international workers' movement, though it only found success after his death. What is this song?
- A member of the Commune, put in charge of the War ministry towards the end of the siege, this man died on 25 May 1871 after climbing alone, unarmed, onto a barricade, the red sash of the Commune's elected members clearly visible on his chest. Who is he?
- Nicknamed 'the Confined One' for the thirty-seven years he spent, all told, in prison for his revolutionary activities, this socialist theorist, arrested just before the start of the 1871 Commune, nonetheless gave his name to a political movement. Who is he?
- Since the end of the nineteenth century, a procession has made its way each year to the Communards' Wall. What event does this pilgrimage commemorate?
- The 147 Communards shot at the Communards' Wall remain the best-known symbol of the repression, but they represent only a fraction of the overall death toll. What order of magnitude do historians put on the total number of deaths across the whole Bloody Week?
- This exiled Polish general, one of the few professionally trained officers to command the Commune's troops, died on 25 May 1871 while preparing a counter-attack. Although buried at Père-Lachaise, the exact location of his grave has since been lost. Who is he?
- During the Commune, the French government withdrew from insurgent Paris to a nearby town. Its troops, who finally crushed the uprising in May 1871, are commonly nicknamed after this town. What are they called?
- On 27 May 1871, surrounded by Versaillais troops, a group of Communards entrenched in the cemetery ran out of ammunition and had to continue fighting by other means, among the graves themselves. How did this final confrontation play out?