La Guillotière

La Guillotière

However, the red flag continued to fly over the town hall of la Guillotière, place du Pont. On April 30, after a call to boycott the elections, it was occupied by the national guards who forbade access to the polls with the complicity of the majority of the population. Barricades were erected on Grand rue de la Guillotière and cours des Brosses. The army arrived from Perrache, on the orders of prefect Marie-Edmond Valentin, facing a crowd of 20,000 to 25,000 people shouting "Don't shoot! Stick in the air! You are being made to march against the people!" It was then that two columns of infantry, one by the Pont de la Guillotière with Valentin and the other by the rue de Marseille with Andrieux, dispersed the demonstrators around 7.45 p.m. by firing. The insurgents retaliated from behind the barricades and the battle lasted until 11 p.m., when the soldiers called in the artillery to break down the doors of the town hall of la Guillotière. There were around thirty dead. Agent Jacques François Griscelli appeared to have played a role in this episode by defeating the "Geneva plot".