Les Ruines de Paris et de ses Environs 1870-1871, Cent Photographies, Second Volume. DP161639

Alfred d'Aunay's introduction to the second volume of Liébert's compendium of photographs of the ruins of Paris and its environs begins with the following description of Neuilly, the suburb of Paris that for three weeks lay between the Communards and the nationalists and absorbed the fire of each:

If the tourist would like to get an idea of a complete disaster, of a village in which not a house was spared, in which not a section of wall dodged the terrible baptism of bombardment and grapeshot, it is to Neuilly that he must make his pilgrimage. At Neuilly, all along that immense avenue that Sunday "promeneurs" know so well, there is not a single house that did not at least have its windows broken, its roof caved in, its walls breached by large holes.