The destruction of the Tuileries Palace
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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On May 23, 1871, during the suppression of the Paris Commune, twelve men under the orders of a Communard, Dardelle, set the Tuileries Palace on fire at 7 p.m., using petroleum, liquid tar, and turpentine. The fire lasted for 48 hours and entirely consumed the palace. It was only on May 25 that the Paris fire brigades and the 26th battalion of the Africa Chasseurs managed to put out the fire. Other portions of the Louvre were also set on fire by Communards and entirely destroyed. The museum itself was only miraculously saved.
The ruins of the Tuileries stood on the site for eleven years. Although the roofs and the inside of the palace had been utterly destroyed by the fire, the stone shell of the palace remained intact, and restoration was possible. Other monuments of Paris also set on fire by Communards, such as the Paris City Hall, were rebuilt in the 1870s. After much hesitation, the Third Republic eventually decided not to restore the ruins of the Tuileries, which had become a symbol of the former royal and imperial regimes. On the other hand, the portions of the Louvre that had also been destroyed by fire were rebuilt in their original style by the French government.
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