Explores the seminal events surrounding the rise and fall of the 1871 Paris Commune. After the disastrous defeat suffered by the French in the Franco-Prussian War, a revolutionary fervour arose in Paris that shortly turned into civil war. As the monarchy of Napoleon III collapsed and a Government of National Defence emerged, a situation arose in which the commoners seized the reins of power and established a government that challenged the authority of the newly elected National Assembly. The establishment of the Paris Commune, a power separate from the one legally enforced by the state, forced an inevitable confrontation between established and insurgent authorities.