1871: Hostages of the Paris Commune
May 26th, 2010 Headsman
The fall of the Paris Commune on May 28, 1871 launched many a leftist insurrectionary into the martyrs’ firmament.
But the last semaine sanglante that engulfed the Commune there was blood enough for many martyrdoms.
On this date in 1871, just days before the Commune gave way, it executed a clutch of hostages (French link) in desperate reprisal for the Versailles army’s cruelties. For the Commune, it was too little ruthlessness and much too late. For the 52 who stood up against the wall this date, they were just as dead.
These unfortunates were marched from La Roquette prison — whose inmates by dint of timely resistance only narrowly avoided a more extensive massacre — to Rue Haxo and slaughtered.
A number of them were men of the cloth. In 1938, the Catholic church of Notre Dame des Otages was erected on the site and dedicated to the victims’ memory.
(The markers on the spot have settled on 52 as the number of the victims, which might be the historically authoritative count; different sources, however, provide slightly different numbers.)
On this day..
- 1831: Ciro Menotti, hero to Garibaldi - 2020
- 2009: The brother of an Iraqi rape victim - 2019
- 1584: Samuel Zborowski, dangerous precedent - 2018
- 1755: Louis Mandrin - 2017
- Themed Set: The 2010s - 2016
- 2011: Mehdi Farahj, photographed by Ebrahim Noroozi - 2016
- 1868: Michael Barrett, the last public hanging in England - 2015
- Themed Set: Terrorism - 2015
- 1651: Jeane Gardiner, Bermuda witch - 2014
- 1991: Li Xinming, fecund - 2013
- 1884: Mary Lefley, exonerated by a deathbed confession - 2012
- 1647: Alse Young, the first witchcraft execution in New England - 2011
- 1831: Mariana de Pineda Muñoz, Spanish liberal - 2009
- 1923: Albert Leo Schlageter, Nazi martyr - 2008
Entry Filed under: 19th Century,Cycle of Violence,Execution,France,History,Hostages,Innocent Bystanders,Martyrs,Mass Executions,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Public Executions,Religious Figures,Shot,Summary Executions,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1870s, 1871, appert eugene ernest, la roquette prison, may 26, notre dame des otages, paris, paris commune
