3-043-849 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ruins of Paris, 1871. Photographer with plate camera taking photographs of firemen extinguishing fires in buildings '...destroyed by the fury of the Communist faction...on the Place de la Concorde, at the corner of the Rue de Rivoli,...the remains of a great barricade, abutting on the wall of the Tuileries Gardens, were still to be seen. The front wall of the Ministry of Finance, in the Rue de Rivoli, had fallen in the conflagration, and the fire was not quite extinguished when our Artist made his sketch. In the foreground was the pedestal of one of the statues of female figures designed to represent the chief cities of France: this was Lille, which had been completely smashed by cannonballs or shells'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.