On May 8, 1871, Thiers sent an ultimatum to the Parisians.
Three days later the Municipality ordered the demolition of its mansion on Place Saint-Georges.
And on the 16th, the Vendôme column, an imperial symbol, was brought down.
This, while the painter Gustave Courbet, president of the commission responsible for the conservation of museums and works of art had only called for its
"debacle"
with deposit of bas-reliefs at the Invalides.
During the night of 23-24, despite a Paris corseted by barricades, the Versaillais reached the Latin Quarter.
Their progress was facilitated by bombardments on the Champ-de-Mars and the Ministry of Finance, then rue de Rivoli.
These red cannon shots are the cause of the first fires.
The others, active until the evening of May 26, much more numerous and devastating, are the responsibility of the Municipality.
Instructions were in fact passed to burn Paris rather than surrender.
The Tuileries Palace, once the head of an Empire, the second largest in the world, glows the
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