The roar of gunfire is lost in a distance… The canons are spitting out their last red munitions.

At the Tuileries, at the Louvre, at the Palais Royal, the smell of powder and of petrol fills the air surrounding the ruins.

At the Place Vendôme, the column is lying on the ground on a carpet of dirt and of bundles of sticks, broken into small pieces. H
ere and there, blue and red pages escape from a blacken notebook and fly around in the evil wind.

In the west, the triumphant soldiers parade on the cobbled streets chewing Caporal tobacco.

In the Belleville neighbourhood, 
the hunted down rebels lie their wounded down on beds covered with burst cushions, use their scarves as tourniquets and tear up their shirts into shreds.

One of them is wearing around his neck a bullet as a pendant, as an ultimate way of challenging Monsieur Thiers.

But can you hear these rumblings rising up from the center of the city?

Can you hear the humming that makes heads spin and hearts sink?

It’s the cry of Paris that people believed to have been hushed forever.

Paris will be the capital of dawn.

The Paris Commune is dead! Long live the Paris Commune!

© by Commune de Paris