Quartier de la Butte-aux-Cailles

The Butte-aux-Cailles rises above the surrounding thirteenth arrondissement like a village held in amber. Its narrow, winding streets are defined by low-slung, brick houses and ivy-covered facades, a sharp contrast to the towering Haussmann apartment blocks nearby. In eighteen seventy-one, the neighborhood became a stronghold for the Paris Commune. When government troops moved to crush the uprising, the local tanners and laborers held the steep, twisting alleys against them, making the hillside one of the final points of resistance in the city.