The Arcades Project - Operi

Then, in the Assemblies of the Commune ... , side by side with the workers of
Paris ... , with the warriors of socialism, one could see the poet of the International,
Potier; the author of L'Insltrge, Jules Valles; the painter of L 'Enterrement
ii Ornans, Courbet; and the brilliant researcher into the physiology of the cerebel­
lum, the great Flourens." Aragon, I . I.D'Alfred de Vigny a Avdeenko,"
Commune, 2 (April 20, 1935), pp. 810, 815. [kIa,2]
"The Commune, which accorded seats only to those elected from the workers'
districts, was formed of a coalition of revolutionaries without a common program.
Of the seventy-eight members, only a score were intent on projects of social re­
form; the majority were Jacobin democrats in the tradition of 1793 (Delescluze)."
A. Malet, P. Grillet, XIX" Sieck (Paris, 1919), pp. 481-482. [kIa,3]
Within the Commune emerged the project of a Monument to the Accursed, which
was supposed to be raised in the corner of a public square whose center would be
occupied by a war memorial. All the official personalities of the Second Empire
(according to the draft of the project) were to be listed on it. Even Haussmann's
name is there. In this way, an "infernal history" of the regime was to be launched,
although the intention was to go back to Napoleon I, "the villain of Brumaire-the
chief of this accursed race of crowned bohemians vomited forth to us by Corsica,
this fatal line of bastards so degenerated they would be lost in their own native
land." The project, in the form of a printed placard, is dated April 15, 1871.
(Exhibition entitled "La Commune de Paris," Municipal Offices of Saint-Denis.)
[k2,l]
"There are your fruits, bloodthirsty Commune; / Yes, ... you wanted to annihi­
late Paris." The last line is the refrain of a poem, " Les Ruines de Paris," printed as
a pamphlet (Exhibition by the Municipality of Saint-Denis). [k2,2]
A lithograph by Marcier, Le Depart de la Commune, published by Deforet et
Cesar Editeurs, shows a woman (?) riding an animal that is half-nag and halfhyena,
wrapped in a giant shroud, and brandishing the tattered, dirty red flag,
wIllIe leaving behind her a murky alley filled with the smoke and flames of burning
houses. (Exhibition, Municipality of Saint-Denis.) [k2,3]
Mter the taking of Paris, L'Illllstrntion published a drawing entitled Chasse it
l'homme dans les catacombes . In fact, the catacombs
were searched one day for fugitives. Those found were shot. The troops
entered at the Place Denfert-Rochereau, while the outlets of the catacombs toward
the plain of Montsouris were guarded. (Exhibition.) [k2,4]
A Communard pamphlet publishes a drawing captioned Les Cadavres decou-verts
dans les souterrains de l'Eglise Saint-Laurent . It was elaimed that female corpses had