The Paris Commune. The Bloody Week. Sunday, May 28, 1871. At ten o'clock this morning, the resistance of the last fighters of the Paris Commune is reduced to the small square formed by the streets of Faubourg du Temple, Trois-Bornes, Trois-Couronnes, and Boulevard de Belleville. Varlin, Ferré, and Gambon, with a red scarf around their necks, have fallen back toward the 11th arrondissement and taken position behind the barricades. By eleven, the federates have almost no more cannons and two-thirds of the Versailles army surround them, and at noon, the last federate cannon shot is fired from rue de Paris. The last barricade of these days is on rue Ramponneau: it is defended, for a quarter of an hour, by a single soldier of the National Guard. It is all over. At La Roquette, 1,900 communards are executed by firing squad. In the afternoon, Eugène Varlin, a bookbinder by profession, socialist, activist of the First Socialist International, appointed to the finance commission and to the subsistence commission of the Paris Commune, who had opposed the execution of hostages in rue Haxo, present on the barricades of the Belleville district from beginning to end, is exhausted and is sitting on a bench at the foot of the Montmartre hill. Recognized by a priest and denounced by him, he is arrested and dragged through the streets of Montmartre. He is literally lynched by a crowd of Versailles soldiers and opponents of the Commune. Varlin, unable to stand, disfigured, with one eye out of its socket, is executed by firing squad while seated on a chair. After the execution, his body is battered with clubs. Governmental order reigns in Paris, the Commune was a self-government experience that lasted 72 days.
