Dark and tragic hours in the history of our city: the Paris commune at the end of the 19th century ended in a bloodbath on May 28, 1871.
147 communards are riddled with bullets by the regular army of Adolphe Thiers and General Mac Mahon. In the grounds of Père Lachaise, to the south-east of the cemetery, Parisians, for the most part, workers, craftsmen, jobbers, are shot with their backs to the wall which will become for history the wall of the federates.
On the first of May for more than 100 years, Freemasonry, more precisely the Grand Orient, has commemorated the executions of the town at Père Lachaise. They were only a handful at the beginning, now thousands joined by anarchists, communists and free thinkers. In the 1980s, under the seven-year term of President François Mitterrand, the celebration experienced a new boom. Extremely rare, the Prime Minister of Mitterrand, Pierre Mauroy, participated in the commemoration in 1983.
Beyond the federated wall, Père Lachaise is a high place of Freemasonry, dozens of tombs of dignitaries attest to this. From Jules Vallès to Jean Baptiste Clément, the author of the time of cherries, from Cambacérès to the Marshals of the first empire. For example, of Napoleon’s 24 marshals, 17 were Freemasons.
Tomorrow, on this first of May, go to Père Lachaise from 10 a.m., for this homage to the commune of Paris, the rise to the wall of the federates, secular pilgrimage organized by the Freemasons of Paris, the Grand Orient and other obediences.