La Commune de Paris - Part 1
Today, in 1871, a little event called the Paris Commune of 1871 started. It started with a group of women in Montmartre hearing that the naisent Third Republic was coming to take them away, haha coming to take the 400 cannons they'd paid for in taxes during the Siege of Paris in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870.
Now picture the way they must have felt for a moment: they'd just been starving for six months to the point where there was a rather interesting episode involving the people of Paris looking at the circus elephants, listening to their growling stomachs and deciding that the circus could do without its elephants, where rats and horses were being served in gourmet restaurants and where there were a lot fewer pets in the city coming out of the Siege than going into it. Several people had sold their workmen's tools to pawnshops to be able to afford to feed themeselves and their families, (like a majority of the workers). Now you've got people who have been starving and haven't had jobs (because they sold their tools), and the Third Republic, which had delayed rents during the Siege, declares they have three months to pay their rents and-while-they're-at-it-could-they-pay-the-money-the-new-German-Empire-demanded-of-France-after-France's-rather-brutal-defeat-and-loss-of-Alsace-Lorraine-and-oh-yeah-taking-away-Paris's-cannons-so-they-get-uppity-and-pissed-off-kthxbai. Okay, slightly more complicated than that. The Third Republic was worried that Paris, which had been under Siege and starving for six months, wasn't quite as willing to lie down and let the Germans les enculait (direct trans.: take it up the ass because damn that Treaty really was akin to it) as the rest of France... which it wasn't.
Now Thiers (president of the Third Republic) must have been one of the stupidest individuals ever as he sent regular troops to pick up these cannons, which had already been dragged up to the top of Montmartre (think where Sacre-Coeur now is), to drag away these 400 cannons without sending any horses or anything to drag the cannons (because these cannons were heavier than the average person could bear). So these soldiers are trying to figure out how to cart these fuckers, and the women of Montmartre come up and the National Guard come up and they lie down on these cannons and tell the soldiers that if they want to take the cannons, they are going to have to take the cannons over their dead bodies. Now the soldiers are not entirely willing to shoot women, children and National Guardmen, so when their generals ordered them to shoot them, the soldiers shot their generals instead.
Now Thiers freaked out and ordered the evacution of the city by as much of the adminstration, police, regular troops, etc as would follow him to Versailles, 12 miles away from Paris. Quite a good number did... leaving Paris entirely void of government. And Paris realized it pretty quickly.
Now picture the way they must have felt for a moment: they'd just been starving for six months to the point where there was a rather interesting episode involving the people of Paris looking at the circus elephants, listening to their growling stomachs and deciding that the circus could do without its elephants, where rats and horses were being served in gourmet restaurants and where there were a lot fewer pets in the city coming out of the Siege than going into it. Several people had sold their workmen's tools to pawnshops to be able to afford to feed themeselves and their families, (like a majority of the workers). Now you've got people who have been starving and haven't had jobs (because they sold their tools), and the Third Republic, which had delayed rents during the Siege, declares they have three months to pay their rents and-while-they're-at-it-could-they-pay-the-money-the-new-German-Empire-demanded-of-France-after-France's-rather-brutal-defeat-and-loss-of-Alsace-Lorraine-and-oh-yeah-taking-away-Paris's-cannons-so-they-get-uppity-and-pissed-off-kthxbai. Okay, slightly more complicated than that. The Third Republic was worried that Paris, which had been under Siege and starving for six months, wasn't quite as willing to lie down and let the Germans les enculait (direct trans.: take it up the ass because damn that Treaty really was akin to it) as the rest of France... which it wasn't.
Now Thiers (president of the Third Republic) must have been one of the stupidest individuals ever as he sent regular troops to pick up these cannons, which had already been dragged up to the top of Montmartre (think where Sacre-Coeur now is), to drag away these 400 cannons without sending any horses or anything to drag the cannons (because these cannons were heavier than the average person could bear). So these soldiers are trying to figure out how to cart these fuckers, and the women of Montmartre come up and the National Guard come up and they lie down on these cannons and tell the soldiers that if they want to take the cannons, they are going to have to take the cannons over their dead bodies. Now the soldiers are not entirely willing to shoot women, children and National Guardmen, so when their generals ordered them to shoot them, the soldiers shot their generals instead.
Now Thiers freaked out and ordered the evacution of the city by as much of the adminstration, police, regular troops, etc as would follow him to Versailles, 12 miles away from Paris. Quite a good number did... leaving Paris entirely void of government. And Paris realized it pretty quickly.