[Gustave Flourens]

Carte de visite portrait of Gustave Flourens (1838-1871) a member of the Paris Commune which was the socialist and revolutionary government that ruled Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. 

He was Revolutionary leader and writer and elder of Emile Flourens, who became minister of foreign affairs under the Third Republic. In Paris he devoted his time to the cause of “red republicanis”, and began writing articles in the La Marseillaise weekly newspaper. At length, having failed in an attempt to organize a revolution at Belleville on 7 February 1870, was compelled to flee from France. Returning to Paris on the downfall of Napoleon, he placed himself at the head of a body of 500 tirailleurs (sharpshooters). Because of his insurrectionist proceedings (he was one of the organizers of the 31 October 1870 riot against the provisional government, and confined at Mazas on 7 December 1870, but was released on the night of 21-22 January. 

On 18 March he joined the population’s uprising, was elected a ember of the revolutionary Commune by the Xxe arrondissement, and was named general. Gustave Flourens was one of the most active leaders of the insurrection, and after a sortie against the Versailles troops in the morning of 3rd April, he fled into an inn near the bridge that seperates Chatou and Rueil. There, after he was captured and disarmed by the Gendarmerie, he was murdered by Captain Jean-Marc Demaret.