Paris in Ruins: Love, War, and the Birth of Impressionism

Paris in Ruins explores the lives and work of artists in the context of the turbulence of 19th-century France. The following dates and figures are key to understanding this history.

• July 14th, 1789: Following many years of unrest, revolutionaries in Paris rise up against the monarchy led by King Louis XVI and Queen Marie-Antoinette. They storm the jail at the Bastille.

• September 22nd, 1792: The King and Queen are deposed and the First French Republic is established.

• May 18th, 1804: Napoléon Bonaparte, a leading general during the Revolution, declares himself Emperor of France from the Château in Saint-Cloud, just outside of Paris. The First French Republic ends and the First Empire begins.

• 1814: Napoléon is exiled and the Bourbon line (the same royal family as Louis XVI) is returned to the throne. Louis XVIII and Charles X, Louis XVI’s brothers, serve consecutively. Their claim to the throne is supported by a faction known as the Legitimists.

• 1830: Following the July Revolution, King Louis-Philippe of Orléans ascends to the throne of France. He is dubbed “King of the French” and seeks to rule via a constitutional monarchy. His claim to the throne is supported by a faction known as the Orléanists.

• February 1848: the February Revolution leads to the end of King Louis-Philippe’s reign and the establishment of the Second Republic. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Napoleon III, is elected President of the new republic. There is a wave of republican revolutions across Europe.

• 1852: Napoleon III declares himself Emperor of France. The Second Empire begins.

• 1870: France goes to war with Prussia and loses. Napoleon III resigns in disgrace.

• September 4th, 1870: The Third Republic is established.

• March 18th-May 28th, 1871: Disappointed with the national government led by conservative Adolphe Thiers, a group of “radical” republicans seize control of the city of Paris and declare the Commune. The French government attacks the city. Approximately 15,000-20,000 people are killed.

• April 15th-May 15th, 1874: The First Impressionist Exhibition is held in Paris.

The events in the book take place largely between 1870 and 1871, dubbed “the Terrible Year.” The figures have to navigate the highly factionalized political landscape. The main political factions at the time were: The Bonapartists, who supported Napoleon III and the Bonaparte line; the Orléanists, who supported a constitutional monarchy, like that of King Louis-Philippe; the Legitimists, who supported the Bourbon claim to the throne; the moderate republicans, who supported a democratic republic; and the radical republicans, who held a variety of left-wing positions that were considered more extreme than those of their moderate counterparts. Some of the key radical republicans included Louis Blanqui, a socialist, and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, an anarchist.

Many of the artists who would later come to be known as the Impressionists supported the republican factions. For instance, painter Claude Monet was good friends with moderate republican Georges Clemenceau. The conservative factions associated the painters’ revolutionary art style with their left-wing politics, and derided them for both. Smee argues that the Impressionist style—especially as developed by Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot—was in part a reaction to the upheaval of the Terrible Year.