3-043-850 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Ruins of Paris: Porte Maillot and the Avenue de la Grande Armée, 1871. Fall of the Paris Commune. 'The eagerness of the Parisians, as soon as the second siege was finished, to pass out into the suburban districts, either to escape from the scene of their greatest distress or to inspect the battle-fields outside, was very remarkable. At the same time, there was a great throng of people from Versailles, St. Germains, and other neighbouring towns or surrounding villages, not less eager to get into the city. The crowded state of the great thoroughfare at the Porte Maillot, in the Avenue de la Grande Armée, which leads from the Champs Elysées to Courbevoie and Neuilly, is shown as it appeared a week after the final capture of Paris, when people were at length allowed freely to come in or go out. The deep railway cutting which here traverses the ground is that of the Chemin de Fer de Ceinture; but many of the iron horizontal beams which were fixed to support its side walls had been knocked out of place'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.