Éduard Manet prudently spent the first six months of 1871 in a remote village in the French Pyrenees, thus avoiding both the siege of Paris and the Commune. Though in his absence, his friends added his name to the Fédération des Artistes in the Paris Commune. He missed the bloodshed in any case.
But he documented a scene from the battle: The French troops calmly execute Communards, including women.
It truly was a horrific episode. The number of people killed foreshadows the atrocities of the 20th century.
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