The Paris Commune. The Bloody Week. Friday, May 26, 1871. Throughout the day, the Versailles troops advance into Paris and the flow of prisoners grows so much that it becomes necessary to centralize executions in certain designated places: the Lobau barracks, the military school, the Jardin des Plantes, and at the East and North stations. The condemned prisoners are crowded together and executed using machine guns. In the afternoon, the Versaillais have taken the Bastille and General Vinoy, despite the delay caused by the fierce resistance of the barricade in rue de Reuilly, continues his advance towards the east of the city, not without continuing house-to-house searches and summary executions. Without trial and forced to his knees, Jean-Baptiste Millière, representative of the people in the National Assembly, is shot on the steps of the Pantheon. A crowd of Parisians and Communards, exasperated by the bombardments and shootings, gathers in rue Haxo and storms the Roquette prison, seizes the imprisoned hostages, and shoots them. Thus die some spies, a dozen priests, about thirty gendarmes, despite the opposition of Varlin and Piat, two members of the Commune assembly, who try in vain to prevent this useless massacre. At the end of this dramatic day, the Communards are now barricaded only in Butte-Chaumont, Belleville, and the Père-Lachaise cemetery, corresponding to the 19th arrondissement, 20th, part of the 11th, and a bit of the 10th.
