3-043-759 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The last perquisition, 1871. La semaine sanglante in Paris - a soldier helps himself to the contents of a recently executed man's pockets. 'In continuation of the series of our Illustrations, furnished by the sketches of our Special Artist, and of several French artists, who witnessed the late deplorable conflict in Paris, it is our painful task to represent the wholesale acts of vengeance which followed the conquest of different quarters of the city...Hundreds of the Communist insurgents, being captured at the barricades with arms in their hands, and having refused to submit to the officers commanding the troops, were instantly taken to the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace, or to the courtyard inside the prison of La Roquette, or to other places where they were ranged in front of a wall and shot by the soldiers or sailors..."inside the walls of La Roquette I heard a series of some hundred rifle shots, followed by the tear of a mitrailleuse, and was informed by an officer standing by that Justice was doing her work. Two large furniture-vans stood at the prison-gate; one had already received its ghastly load, the other was being rapidly filled".' From "Illustrated London News", 1871.