3-047-118 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Visit of M. Thiers to his house in the Place St. Georges, 1872. 'It will be remembered that one of the frantic acts of futile spite and vengeance perpetrated, a year and a half ago, by the furious fanatics of the Paris Commune, was to destroy the private mansion of M. Thiers, in the Place St. Georges, about the same time that they pulled down the Napoleon Column in the Place Vendôme. The French National Assembly at Versailles, upon the recovery of Paris from that carnival of democratic insanity, resolved that the veteran statesman's house should be rebuilt at the public cost; and the work has since been carried on quietly, with occasional visits from M. Thiers when he can spare half an hour to drive out in his carriage, and to relieve his mind from the incessant toils of his political dictatorship, which has lately been rendered more difficult by the hostility of Parliamentary factions. The scene of his arrival, on one of these occasions, at the gate of his old residence, for the purpose of inspecting the builders' work, is shown in our Illustration, with the crowd of bystanders waiting to see him, and willing to greet him with cheers for the sake of a bow from the great little man, in due return for the civility they have bestowed upon him'. From "Illustrated London News", 1872.