THE capture of Napoleon III at Sedan on Sept. 2,1870, ended the Second Empire, but not the Franco-Prussian War. Invested by the German Armies, cut off from the rest of France, without defenders at the front, Paris organized its own resistance under fiery, one-eyed Interior Minister Leon Gambetta. The city held out for four desperate months. Then Bismarck laid down his harsh peace terms to the provisional Government of Adolphe Thiers at Versailles. Radical Parisians, still armed for the siege and fearing a restoration of the monarchy, set up a revolutionary Commune on March 18, 1871. The city which had previously...
To continue reading:
or
Log-In
