Mur des Fédérés: The Wall of the Communards
Why is it significant?
This is the end of the walk, and it is the plainest place on it. An old wall of rough stone, ivy, a few flowers on the ground, and a simple plaque that reads: to the dead of the Commune, 21 to 28 May 1871. Stand here for a moment. You will understand why people speak quietly.
Key Facts
| Place | Mur des Fédérés: The Wall of the Communards |
|---|---|
| Address | Cimetière du Père-Lachaise, Division 76, 16 Rue du Repos, 75020 Paris, France |
| Geo Coordinates | 48.85970, 2.40010 |
| Part of Walk | Rebel Hill: Buttes-Chaumont, Belleville & the Secrets of Père-Lachaise in Paris |
| Generated | Generated |
This is the end of the walk, and it is the plainest place on it. An old wall of rough stone, ivy, a few flowers on the ground, and a simple plaque that reads: to the dead of the Commune, 21 to 28 May 1871. Stand here for a moment. You will understand why people speak quietly.
In the spring of 1871, after France's defeat by Prussia, the people of Paris rose up and set up their own revolutionary government, the Commune. For two months the city ran itself. Then the army of the national government, based at Versailles, broke into Paris, and fought its way from west to east, street by street, through what became known as the Bloody Week. The east of Paris, Belleville and Ménilmontant, the streets you have walked today, was the last to fall.
On the 27th of May the fighting reached this cemetery. Communards defended themselves among the tombs, firing from behind the gravestones, until they were overwhelmed. The next morning, a hundred and forty-seven of the prisoners were lined up against this wall and shot, and their bodies thrown into a pit dug at its foot. Across the city, thousands more were killed that week, and historians still argue about how many.
The wall became a shrine almost at once. Every year since the 1880s, at the end of May, crowds have marched here with red flags and flowers to remember the Communards, and the Mur des Fédérés is still a place of pilgrimage for the French left. Around it you will see memorials to other victims of the twentieth century, among them the people deported to Nazi camps... a corner of Paris devoted to remembering.
And here is the last link of the day. A few steps away lies the girl from the steps of the Rue de Belleville, Édith Piaf, buried in 1963 in a simple family grave, still covered in flowers. You began this walk on a rock above an old quarry and a gallows, and you end at a wall that remembers. Belleville has always been the city's rebellious, singing, stubborn heart... and now you know why. The Gambetta exit and the metro are just a few minutes away to the north.