The letters of Alix Joffroy (1844–1908),a medical intern at Lariboisière’s Hospital at the time of the Commune of Paris

Abstract

Since opening in 1848, Lariboisière’s Hospital was strongly associated with the history of Paris and especially with the terrible days of the siege of Paris and the fights of the Commune. On the day after the surrender, Alix Joffroy wrote his first letter to his mother. He described the events as he experienced them, expressing his feelings about the causes of this political and military disaster and his experience there as an intern. Some weeks after the defeat of France by the Prussians, humbled Parisians attacked governmental troops. From March to May 1871 an improvised insurrectionary movement, The Commune of Paris, had taken power in the capital During the Bloody Week from 21 to 28 May 1871; this movement was suppressed by the Versaillaise Army. In his second letter, Joffroy related with great realism the tooth and nail fighting at the barricades and then the savage repression by the Army of the Communards around Lariboisière’s Hospital. Two letters preciously preserved by Alix Joffroy’s descendants give this man’s unique direct account of a tragic period of the 19th century.