Paris Commune (French Revolution)
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The Paris Commune during the French Revolution was the government of Paris from 1789 until 1795, and especially from 1792 until 1795.
Established in the Hôtel de Ville just after the storming of the Bastille, the Commune became insurrectionary, essentially refusing to take orders from the central French government, in the summer of 1792.
The first mayor was Jean Sylvain Bailly; he was succeeded in November 1791 by Pétion de Villeneuve, after Bailly's unpopular use of the National Guard, to disperse a riotous assembly in the Champ-de-Mars (July 17, 1791).
On the night of August 9, 1792 a new revolutionary Commune took possession of the Hôtel de Ville; the next day insurgents assailed the Tuileries, where the royal family resided. During the ensuing constitutional crisis, the collapsing Legislative Assembly of France was heavily dependent on the Commune for the effective power that allowed it to continue to function as a legislature.
The term Paris Commune more often refers to the Paris Commune of 1871.