54 pages • 1 hour read
Sebastian SmeeParis in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 2Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 2: “The Siege of Paris”
Part 2, Chapter 6 Summary: “War Is Declared”
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of wartime violence.
On January 2nd, 1870, Emperor Napoleon III appointed Émile Ollivier, a Manet family friend and moderate republican, to the position of minister of justice to try and appease the emperor’s republican opponents. Tensions between France and Prussia were growing: Prussia had made advances in military technology that threatened the balance of power in Europe. France had also wound down its standing army to avoid internal conflict between imperialists and republicans, whereas the Prussians had invested in their military. In 1866, Napoleon III had reinstated the National Guard, but they were largely “untrained.”
Meanwhile, there were political divisions. The rivals included Bonapartists, who supported Napoleon; monarchists, who supported either the Bourbons or the Orléans; moderate republicans, who were led by Léon Gambetta; and radical republicans, led by Louis Blanqui. These groups vied for power in France. Napoleon III felt a war against a foreign power could unify these factions against a common enemy, thereby enabling him to assert imperial power. In a similar manner, Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck felt that he could use conflict with France to unify the German Empire he was trying to create.
France used a conflict with Prussia over the throne of Spain as an excuse to declare war on July 19th, 1870. Initially, the French people supported the war, despite French troops having early shambolic losses. By mid-August, however, they realized French troops were retreating from the eastern border with Prussia.
Part 2, Chapter 7 Summary: “Corot’s Dream”
On August 2nd, 1870, Emperor Napoleon III was near the front after the French lost a battle. His wife, Empress Eugénie, urged him not to return due to unrest in Paris. Moderate republican Ollivier declared martial law in Paris before being replaced by an imperialist, and General Louis-Julies Truchu was appointed governor of Paris. He organized the defense of the city. On September 2nd, French troops lost at Sedan and Napoleon III surrendered. On September 4th, republican Léon Gambetta and Jules Favre declared the Third Republic from the Hôtel de Ville, the main town hall in Paris.
After the French loss at Sedan, the Prussian forces advanced on Paris. Meanwhile, republican writer and hero Victor Hugo returned to Paris and George Clemenceau was elected mayor of Montmartre. Wealthy people fled the city, while villagers and returning troops arrived to take shelter there. The Morisots, along with Manet and some other artists, decided to stay in Paris despite the impending danger.
On September 9th, the painter Camille Corot had a dream about the destruction of Paris. The painting he made of this “premonition,” Le Rêve, was never exhibited during his lifetime.
On September 17th, Édouard Manet reported for military duty. He served with his brother, Eugène. They frequented radical and moderate republican meetings in the evening. His wife, Suzanne, and their child had been sent to safety outside of the city. On September 19th, Prussian troops surrounded the city and the siege began.
Part 2, Chapter 8 Summary: “The Siege Begins”
Although Jules Favre tried to negotiate a ceasefire with the Prussians, talks were unsuccessful. The Parisian people, including Édouard, were outraged at “the Prussian’s ‘outrageous pretensions’” (123). A provisional government was established in Tours, but it was difficult to get messages past the Prussian army surrounding Paris.
Clemenceau allowed Nadar to launch hot air balloons from Montmartre to get messages out of Paris beginning on September 22nd. Berthe and Édouard sent letters to their loved ones using this hot air balloon system. The balloons would carry mail outside of the city, and then the letters would be taken to the closest post office when they landed. Food was rationed.
Many artists, including Édouard and Degas, volunteered for military service. The socialist, pacifist Realist painter Gustave Courbet was charged with protecting art in the museums. The Orléanist and counter-revolutionary Adolphe Thiers, a friend of Marcello and avid art collector, took a leading role in the new republic.
In October, the Prussians began shooting cannons at Paris. On October 7th, Léon Gambetta took a hot air balloon to Crémery, 40 miles from Paris. After a detour in Rouen, he took a train to Tours to join the government there.
Part 2, Chapter 9 Summary: “Line in Front of the Butcher Shop”
Although wealthy Parisians had support for enduring the siege, poor Parisians suffered while the city was shut down. Despite the Morisot family wealth, Berthe fell ill and lost weight. Neither Berthe nor Édouard painted during this time. Édouard and Degas visited the Morisot residence and Cornélie noted they were “willing to die […] in order to save the country” (142).
The Prussian Army continued its bombardment, destroying the château at Saint-Cloud on the outskirts of the city. Between October 27th and 30th, the French took and then lost Le Bourget north of the city. Meanwhile, the French surrendered at Metz and the Prussian forces around Paris were reinforced. Thiers went to negotiate with the Prussians for an armistice, enraging Parisians, who attempted an insurrection on the evening of October 30th. Prussian leader Otto von Bismark refused to negotiate with Thiers because he felt Thiers’s government would not be in power long enough to enforce the terms of surrender.
During the cold and hungry November, Édouard completed an etching called Line in Front of the Butcher Shop, depicting women lined up waiting to see what they could get at the butcher shop. The balloon mail system had been expanded. Return letters were sent by microphotographic rolls tied to homing pigeons that were read using magic lanterns [a kind of early projector]. Édouard wrote his wife Suzanne frequently, and eventually received a response via this method that buoyed his sprits.
Part 2, Chapter 10 Summary: “Lights Extinguished”
Painter Frédéric Bazille was in the town of Méric in Provence when the war broke out. He enlisted in the Third Zouave Regiment even though he did not have to. On November 29th, he died in a battle near Orléans.
Meanwhile, in Paris, conditions worsened. On November 19th, Édouard went with a several thousand French soldiers to attempt to break the Prussian line to the east of the city. They were unsuccessful. By December 2nd, he was back in his apartment. Facing losses on many fronts, the provisional government abandoned Tours for Bordeaux.
Art critic Philippe Burty visited author Victor Hugo to show him some of Spanish painter Goya’s etchings depicting war. Hugo described the images as “beautiful and hideous” (164).
By December 7th, Édouard had requested to be transferred from artillery to the general staff due to an injury to his foot. By mid-December, Berthe’s health had also worsened. On December 22nd, Édouard wrote Suzanne to say he was starving and that he was too sore to ride a horse. On December 26th, a group of radical republicans met and a man named Joly proposed a new form of self-governance called a Commune, because of how incompetent the provisional government seemed to be. Radical republicans continued planning for a Commune throughout January.
After Christmas, Édouard completed two paintings, one of a railway station and one of a church. These paintings are “desolat[e] and gloomy” (167). On January 1st, Édouard and his brother went to visit the Morisot family. Édouard worried that they all seemed unwell, especially Berthe.
On January 5th, the Prussians began directing their cannons at civilian parts of Paris. This angered city residents. On January 9th, Paris ran out of coal. On January 18th, the unified nation of Germany was declared at the château of Versailles. However, the now-German army was beginning to strain at maintaining the siege due to the homesickness of the troops and the lack of supplies.
Part 2, Chapter 11 Summary: “The Siege Ends”
On January 19th, the French National Guard attempted a counterattack on the German forces. They failed to break the German line. 1,500 French men were killed and 3,500 wounded. Manet wrote to his wife that people were at risk of dying of starvation.
After a French loss at Le Mans, government leader Trochu resigned and a new general was appointed. The radicals used the instability to launch another insurrection and to have some radical leaders released from prison. On January 23rd, Favre negotiated an armistice [temporary ceasefire], but the Germans refused to negotiate for a complete surrender with the provisional government: They demanded the French agree on an official government.
By February, food and other supplies made their way back into the city over the only accessible bridge, the Pont de Neuilly, the other access roads having been destroyed. On February 6th, Léon Gambetta resigned. On February 8th, National Assembly elections were held. Although the left won many seats in Paris, reactionaries won the majority of seats nationwide. On February 17th, Orléanist Adolphe Thiers was installed as the chef de l’executif of the government, which was assembled in Bordeaux.
On February 12th, Édouard left Paris and reunited with his family in Bordeaux. Thiers negotiated the terms of surrender, which resulted in the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, and the German Army was given permission to march through Paris. Leftists saw these terms as a betrayal and humiliation. The Parisian National Guard, made up of residents, seized the military’s cannons and assembled them in Montmartre. Radical republicans declared a Republican Federation outside the control of the federal government. Berthe supported the leftists.
On March 1st, the Germans marched through Paris. Members of Manet’s circle “scattered” throughout France. Édouard went to Arcachon near Bordeaux and began painting again. Berthe’s health began to improve. The Morisot family moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just outside the city, to avoid the ongoing unrest in Paris.
Part 2 Analysis
In Part 2, Smee gives a conventional history of the siege of Paris during the War of 1870. He threads in The Personal Experiences of Artists During Crises to give a specific portrait of how Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot experienced this time in history. Smee relies on a combination of academic secondary sources and primary documents, principally correspondence and journal entries, in reconstructing their experiences.
Smee states that he relies heavily on secondary sources for his account of the siege. As he notes in the Acknowledgements, “although I have relied on specialists in the field of art throughout my career as an art critic, I’m less well schooled in the social and political history of nineteenth-century France” (341). These sources are listed in the Bibliography at the end of Paris in Ruins, but the text does not contain any footnotes or in-line citations. This makes it difficult to verify specific assertions Smee makes as a non-specialist in French political and social history. This format is somewhat typical of popular histories, which favor readability over detailed citations. In contrast, academic histories typically provide footnotes or endnotes to justify claims.
Smee also relies on the journals of Edmond Goncourt to provide local color and details of everyday life at the time. The Goncourt brothers were writers and artists who kept detailed journals. The most important prize in French literature, the Prix Goncourt, is part of their legacy. Although Edmond Goncourt does not feature in Smee’s narrative as an actor, his journals provide important contextual information. The Goncourt brothers were conservative members of the minor aristocracy. Their perspective colors Edmond’s account of the time, such as when he remarks upon the establishment of the Paris Commune that the government was “passing from the hands of the haves to those of the have-nots” (209). The use of the Goncourts’ works, rather than contemporary accounts from the point of view of the Communards, points to a paucity in the available archival materials of the time. Working-class people were often illiterate, and even those who could write did not always have access to the resources for writing, such as paper and pens, and likely did not have time to commit events to paper.
When additional primary documents are used, it is typically personal correspondence to provide insight into the Morisot and Manet families’ experiences during the siege. For instance, Smee quotes Manet’s letter to his wife Suzanne, and notes that it “emphasize[s] his solitude” (142), despite the fact he had recently been to visit the Morisots. This implies, although it is never directly stated by the author, that Manet might have been trying to minimize his connection with Berthe to his wife even during the perils of the siege of Paris. Likewise, Smee quotes from Cornélie Morisot’s writings from the time, such as her comments about the tension between Manet and Degas, to give insight into the relationship dynamics of the circle as a whole.
Part 2 also reveals The Impact of Collective Trauma on Creativity. In the correspondence cited by Smee, Édouard repeatedly lies to his friends and wife that he is persisting in painting despite the conflict. He writes to Suzanne that “his knapsack held ‘everything necessary for painting’ and that he thought he could produce some things that would later have value as ‘souvenirs’ of the siege” (167). In reality, he produces only two small paintings. The gap between his claims and the reality suggest that, despite his desire to go on as normal, Manet was too exhausted and traumatized from the continuous stress of the siege to create new works.
