WIDENER DISPLAYS 1871 'BLITZ' PHOTOS

Photographs of the "blitz" which destroyed buildings in Paris in 1871 in devastation comparable to the present war--the only such pictures in existence--have been given to Harvard University by John T. Spaulding '90, of Boston.

Some of the 250 photographs showing the ruins of the Palace of the Tuileries, the Ministry of Finance, the Vendome Column, City Hall, the Louvre Library, the Palace of the Legion of Honor and other buildings are now on public view in Widener Library. Elaborate street barricades manned by the soldiers of the Paris Commune are also pictured.

The photographs were taken by Sir Richard Wallace in Paris during the 1871 struggle between the Paris Commune and the army sent against the city by the anti-republican National Assembly government at Versailles at the conclusion of the Franco-Prussian war, Sir Richard was an art connoisseur who made a study of the then new art of photography and his pictures of the ruins of Paris were unique. The photographs were in Sir Richard's town house in Paris until acquired by Mr. Spaulding.

The people of Paris, embittered against their government by the defeat of the French armies by the Prussians, had proclaimed the city a Commune or free town. When the government troops from Versailles marched into Paris and the defeat of the Commune appeared imminent, the Parisians destroyed the buildings which symbolized the past.