The fires of Paris during the Commune were the premeditated destruction of monuments and residential buildings in Paris mainly during Bloody Week, the period when Paris was recaptured by the Versailles army from Sunday 21 May to Sunday 28 May 1871.
Most of these fires were set by Communards (or Federates), especially between 22 and 26 May. They set fire to major Parisian monuments such as the Tuileries Palace, Palais-Royal, Palais de Justice and Hôtel de Ville, but spared others such as Notre-Dame de Paris. They also set fire to private homes, to protect their barricades from the advancing Versaillais. Setting fire to Paris's great monuments was a strategy of despair, an act of appropriation and purification, and a kind of apocalyptic feast, as the Communards fought their last battles in the streets.
Despite attempts to organize, these fires were lit in the very last days of the Commune, when it was in full decay, and decisions were partly local initiatives, at a time when the usual points of reference, including sensory ones, had been turned upside down. After their defeat, the Communards did not all accept responsibility.
These fires formed a nodal point in the memory of the Commune. In the eyes of the Versaillais, they demonstrated the barbarity of the Communards, particularly the women of the Commune, around whom the myth of the pétroleuses was built. The resulting ruins were not immediately rebuilt and became the object of romantic and touristic appropriation, including numerous photographs. The massive disappearance of archives consumed in the fires deprived Paris of part of its memory.
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