Extract
[...] Thus, already in a previous edition of the newspaper, namely that of March 21, Jules Vallès wrote that « A new peaceful and proud revolution has just been accomplished Paris has reconquered itself. It is now free and sovereign, master of its own destiny and future. If it knows how to take a resolute and wise decision today itself, the triumph of the Republic is assured, and the date of March 20 will be one of the greatest in history [?]». Paris, at the center of the writing, is the symbol of the revolutionary idea at that time, of freedom and of anti-Republic. [...]
[...] From the Commune, and its momentum, there will only remain the fact of having tried, in the name of freedom: future generations will inherit it, as the author himself specifies. [...]
[...] In his works, he denounced the injustices of the bourgeois society in a realistic, journalistic and autobiographical tone. It is therefore in this spirit that his newspaper, The Cry of the People, is structured and written. Difficult to understand today if taken out of context, the excerpt presented here is set in the environment of the Paris Commune of 1871, the insurrectionary movement that later became the government, desired and set up by the people of Paris following the Franco-German war between March 18 and May Deeply troubled and outraged by the injustices committed by the bourgeois society of the time, the text is written in an animated, realistic style, rich in disconcerting images with a syntax that follows the same style. [...]
[...] The Republic does not impose itself immediately. If the Frenchçais had indeed manifested their will to be united by the same will to put an end to the Second Empire, they however remained deeply divisis on the choice of the new presidentregime. It is in this context that on September the Republicans took advantage of it to impose the Republic, without however proposing a democratic consultation. It is therefore in this environment and in these circumstances that counter-movements develop against this choice, which is perceived as an arbitrary imposition of the bourgeoisie. [...]
[...] A context of « twenty years of defeats and anxieties» Throughout the 19th century, France experienced three distinct political regimes. On the one hand, the Monarchy, during the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1814-1848); on the other hand, the Republic, during the Second Republic between 1848 and 1852; the Empire, and notably the Second Empire, with Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte becoming Napoleon III between 1852 and 1870. Then, in 1870, after some hesitation, France finally chose the Republic. It was therefore in 1870 that NapoleonNapoleon III, at war with Prussia, capitulates at Sedan on September 2. [...]
