Unidentified photographer / artist
n.d.
The ruins of the Tuileries palace, burnt during the Communard uprising of 1871

Carte de visite
Paul Frecker
Paul Frecker provides the following comments:
 
"After the Imperial family left France to go into exile in September 1870, the Tuileries Palace was opened to the public, with admission charges going to the wounded, widows and orphans of the Franco-Prussian war. For sums ranging from 5 francs to 50 centimes , the publicity announced, you could visit 'the tyrant' Louis-Napoléon's family apartments and attend a concert 'whereby these rooms might at last be rendered useful to the people'. Posters screamed that 'the gold that drapes these walls is your sweat and toil'. By the end of 1871, supporters of the Commune had looted and burnt most of the palace. For many years it's husk was left to lie as an Ozymandius-like warning to all would-be despots. 'There is not one little blackened stone which is not to me a chapter in the bible of democracy' pronounced Oscar Wilde in 1883 as he contemplated the site. Not until 1889 was it finally cleared to make way for an extension of the formal 17th century gardens laid out by André Le Notre. Some of the debris was sold off - the couturier Worth, with fond memories of Tuileries splendours which he had himself dressed and styled, created a garden folly from his pickings."
 
Photographer unidentified [no backplate].
 
LL/12021