"The Paris Commune or Fourth French Revolution (French: La Commune de Paris, IPA: [la kmyn d pai]) was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 (more formally, from March 28) to May 28, 1871. In a formal sense, it acted as the local authority, the city council (in French, the "commune"), which exercised power in Paris for two months in the spring of 1871....The Siege of Paris, lasting from September 19, 1870 ? January 28, 1871, and the consequent capture of the city by Prussian forces led to French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War and the establishment of the German Empire as well as the Paris Commune."--Wikipedia.