Unlike historic cities such as London or Berlin, Paris came through the world wars almost unscathed, and to our great relief most of its historic monuments survived. And yet, twice in its history, Paris stood on the edge of total destruction and was saved almost by a miracle.
The Women of the Commune Try to Burn Paris
The first time was in 1871. After its defeat in the war with Prussia, France was forced to surrender and sign a treaty that cost it Alsace-Lorraine. Many Parisians refused to accept the surrender, and when the French government tried to take back cannons stationed on top of Montmartre, the people of Paris revolted, drove the French army out of the city, and set up the Paris Commune. For a few short months, the Commune ruled Paris while the government’s army organized itself at Versailles, undisturbed. On May 21, the army invaded Paris and began what became known as the Bloody Week (La Semaine Sanglante), during which thousands of Parisians were killed. The Communards never stood a chance against the well-trained French army, and one Paris neighborhood after another fell until the Commune was finally crushed in the fighting at Père Lachaise and Montmartre.
When the Communards realized they had no chance of winning, many of them decided to burn Paris so that nothing would be left for the invading army. As a result, the Hôtel de Ville, the Tuileries Palace, and a series of less famous buildings all went up in flames. One building that survived by sheer luck was Notre-Dame Cathedral. The Communards piled up the pews and even set them on fire, but soldiers arrived at the last moment and put out the blaze before it could spread. According to rumor, the ones responsible for burning most of the buildings were a squad known as the “incendiaries” (Pétroleuses), lower-class women who were said to throw bottles of kerosene or alcohol into building basements to set them ablaze. In truth, it was never proven that such a squad ever actually existed, but during the fighting, this myth led to tragic results. In one of Paris’s squares, a group of middle-aged women was spotted trying to return empty milk bottles. The soldiers arrested the women, and the simple fact that they were old, unattractive, and holding bottles was enough to convince the soldiers that they were on their way to burn down some building. The women were executed on the spot.
Once the fighting ended and the Commune was crushed, the government faced a decision about what to do with the burned buildings. After considerable debate, it was decided to rebuild the Hôtel de Ville, making it even grander than before. The ruins of the Tuileries Palace, however, were demolished to open up the panoramic view between the courtyard of the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. All that’s left to us now are old photographs of the palace that once stood there (in recent years, a society has formed to push the French government to rebuild the palace, though its chances of success are quite slim).
Paris Faces Destruction Again
The second time Paris faced the threat of total destruction was in August 1944. The Allies had landed in France through Normandy and were advancing toward Paris. The military governor of Paris, Dietrich von Choltitz, received an order from Hitler to destroy the city in revenge for the Allied bombings and Germany’s inevitable defeat. The plan was to blow up the bridges over the Seine, which would have caused the water level to rise sharply and flooded major parts of the city. At the same time, Paris’s main monuments, including the Opéra, the Eiffel Tower, Notre-Dame, the Arc de Triomphe, and the Louvre, were wired with explosives, ready to be detonated the moment the bridges came down. The man who saved Paris from total ruin was the Swedish consul Raoul Nordling, who managed, at the very last moment, to persuade the military governor not to carry out this terrible order. It is thanks to him, and him alone, that any of us have a Paris left to explore.
In 2014, the film “Diplomacy” came out, depicting the struggle between Nordling and von Choltitz over the fate of Paris. I had the chance to watch it at a premiere screening, and I highly recommend it. The film captures the tension and the danger with real precision, and the beautiful shots of the City of Light and the Hôtel Meurice, where much of the story takes place, make you want to book a flight there as soon as possible, before some other madman tries to wipe Paris off the map.
