The Communards' Wall
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Memorial site of the Commune.
Against this boundary wall, on 29 May 1871, a hundred and forty-seven prisoners of the Commune were shot without trial and thrown into a pit dug at the foot of the wall, where a thousand others would soon follow. The day before, the last fighters had fought hand to hand among the monuments. The place became a rallying point even before the amnesty: twenty-five thousand people filed past in May 1880.
The story
On 27 May 1871 the last fighters of the Paris Commune fell back into the cemetery and fought among the graves, hand to hand, against the Versailles troops. The Duke of Morny's chapel served them as a powder store. The fighting went on into part of the night.
The Versailles troops took the cemetery on the afternoon of 28 May 1871. The prisoners were marched to the Mazas prison, brought back to Père-Lachaise the next day, and a hundred and forty-seven of them were shot against the boundary wall without trial. The bodies were buried in a pit dug on the spot, which a thousand more would soon join. For the repression as a whole, estimates run from twenty thousand to thirty thousand dead.
The wall became a gathering place even before the Communards were amnestied. On 23 May 1880, at Jules Guesde's call, twenty-five thousand people marched to it: the first “Montée au Mur”, the climb to the wall, repeated every year since. Jean Jaurès came several times.
On 24 May 1908 the marble plaque was set in place, and the monument to Eugène Pottier, who wrote The Internationale, was unveiled a few steps away. The ceremony turned into a brawl between unified and independent socialists; it took the personal intervention of Prefect Lépine. The next day's papers carried the whole story.
The largest demonstration the wall ever saw dates from 24 May 1936, a few days after the Popular Front's victory: six hundred thousand people, with Léon Blum and Maurice Thorez at their head. Around the wall, the monuments to the deportees of the Nazi camps and to the Resistance now form a memorial ensemble unique in France.
The grave
The wall is not a grave: it is a boundary wall, and that is what makes its effect. No architecture, no statue — a marble plaque laid on 24 May 1908, engraved “To the dead of the Commune, 21-28 May 1871”, and beneath the flagstones a pit dug in 1871 into which a hundred and forty-seven of the executed were thrown, followed shortly afterwards by nearly a thousand other bodies. The monument to Eugène Pottier, unveiled the same day, stands a few steps away; the unveiling ended in a brawl between socialists which the prefect Lépine came to calm in person.
On site, do not miss
The marble plaque and its eight words, then, a few steps away, the monument raised to Eugène Pottier and the row of monuments to the deported.
Visitors' questions
Where is the Communards' Wall?
In Division 76, against the cemetery's south-eastern boundary wall, right at the back of the grounds. The simplest way in is through the Rue de la Réunion entrance or the Gambetta gate; allow about twenty minutes from the main entrance.
Félix FaureWhat happened at the Communards' Wall?
The last Communards fought inside the cemetery on 27 May 1871; the Versailles troops took it on 28 May, and a hundred and forty-seven prisoners were shot against the wall before being thrown into a mass grave.
Adolphe ThiersCan visitors see the deportation memorials?
Yes, they surround the Communards' Wall in Divisions 76 and 97: memorials to those who died in the concentration camps, to Resistance fighters, and to the victims of the Second World War. Together they form the largest group of deportation memorials in France.
André MassénaCan visitors attend the annual march to the Wall?
Yes: every year at the end of May, commemorative processions cross the cemetery to the Communards' Wall, in Division 76. The tradition dates back to 1880, two months before the Communards were granted amnesty.
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