Participants and historians have long debated the number of Communards killed during Bloody Week.
The official army report by General Félix Antoine Appert mentioned only Army casualties, which amounted, from April through May, to 877 killed, 6,454 wounded, and 183 missing.
The report assessed information about Communard casualties only as "very incomplete".
The issue of casualties during the Bloody Week arose at a National Assembly hearing on 28 August 1871, when Marshal MacMahon testified.
Deputy M. Vacherot told him, "A general has told me that the number killed in combat, on the barricades, or after the combat, was as many as 17,000 men."
MacMahon responded, "I don't know what that estimate is based upon; it seems exaggerated to me.
All I can say is that the insurgents lost a lot more people than we did."
Vacherot continued, "Perhaps this number applies to all of the siege, and to the fighting at Forts d'Issy and Vanves."
MacMahon replied, "the number is exaggerated."
Vacherot persisted, "It was General Appert who gave me that information.
Perhaps he meant both dead and wounded."
MacMahon replied, "Ah, well, that's different."

In 1876 Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, who had fought on the barricades during Bloody Week, and had gone into exile in London, wrote a highly popular and sympathetic history of the Commune.
At the end, he wrote: "No one knows the exact number of victims of the Bloody Week.
The chief of the military justice department claimed seventeen thousand shot."
Lissagaray was referring to General Appert, who had reportedly told a National Assembly deputy that there had been 17,000 Commune casualties. "
The municipal council of Paris," Lissagaray continued, "paid for the burial of seventeen thousand bodies; but a large number of persons were killed or cremated outside of Paris." "
It is no exaggeration," Lissagaray concluded, "to say twenty thousand, a number admitted by the officers."
In a new 1896 edition Lissagaray emphasized, "Twenty thousand men, women and children killed after the fighting in Paris and in the provinces."
Several historians have accepted the 20,000 figure, among them Pierre Milza, Alfred Cobban and Benedict Anderson.
Vladimir Lenin said that Lissagaray's estimate demonstrated ruling-class brutality: "20,000 killed in the streets... Lessons: bourgeoisie will stop at nothing."

Between 1878 and 1880, a French historian and member of the Académie française, Maxime Du Camp, wrote Les Convulsions de Paris.
Du Camp had witnessed the last days of the Commune, went inside the Tuileries Palace shortly after the fires were put out, witnessed the executions of Communards by soldiers, and the bodies in the streets.
He studied the question of the number of dead, and studied the records of the office of inspection of the Paris cemeteries, which was in charge of burying the dead.
Based on their records, he reported that between 20 and 30 May, 5,339 corpses of Communards had been taken from the streets or Paris morgue to the city cemeteries for burial.
Between 24 May and 6 September, the office of inspection of cemeteries reported that an additional 1,328 corpses were exhumed from temporary graves at 48 sites, including 754 corpses inside the old quarries near Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, for a total of 6,667.
Modern Marxist critics attacked du Camp and his book; Collette Wilson called it "a key text in the construction and promulgation of the reactionary memory of the Commune" and Paul Lidsky called it "the bible of the anti-Communard literature."
In 2012, however, historian Robert Tombs made a new study of the Paris cemetery records and placed the number killed between 6,000 and 7,000, confirming du Camp's research.
Jacques Rougerie, who had earlier accepted the 20,000 figure, wrote in 2014, "the number ten thousand victims seems today the most plausible; it remains an enormous number for the time."
Participants and historians have long debated the number of Communards killed during Bloody Week. The official army report by General Félix Antoine Appert mentioned only Army casualties, which amounted, from April through May, to 877 killed, 6,454 wounded, and 183 missing. The report assessed information about Communard casualties only as "very incomplete". The issue of casualties during the Bloody Week arose at a National Assembly hearing on 28 August 1871, when Marshal MacMahon testified. Deputy M. Vacherot told him, "A general has told me that the number killed in combat, on the barricades, or after the combat, was as many as 17,000 men." MacMahon responded, "I don't know what that estimate is based upon; it seems exaggerated to me. All I can say is that the insurgents lost a lot more people than we did." Vacherot continued, "Perhaps this number applies to all of the siege, and to the fighting at Forts d'Issy and Vanves." MacMahon replied, "the number is exaggerated." Vacherot persisted, "It was General Appert who gave me that information. Perhaps he meant both dead and wounded." MacMahon replied, "Ah, well, that's different."
In 1876 Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, who had fought on the barricades during Bloody Week, and had gone into exile in London, wrote a highly popular and sympathetic history of the Commune. At the end, he wrote: "No one knows the exact number of victims of the Bloody Week. The chief of the military justice department claimed seventeen thousand shot." Lissagaray was referring to General Appert, who had reportedly told a National Assembly deputy that there had been 17,000 Commune casualties. "The municipal council of Paris," Lissagaray continued, "paid for the burial of seventeen thousand bodies; but a large number of persons were killed or cremated outside of Paris." "It is no exaggeration," Lissagaray concluded, "to say twenty thousand, a number admitted by the officers." In a new 1896 edition Lissagaray emphasized, "Twenty thousand men, women and children killed after the fighting in Paris and in the provinces." Several historians have accepted the 20,000 figure, among them Pierre Milza, Alfred Cobban and Benedict Anderson. Vladimir Lenin said that Lissagaray's estimate demonstrated ruling-class brutality: "20,000 killed in the streets... Lessons: bourgeoisie will stop at nothing."
Between 1878 and 1880, a French historian and member of the Académie française, Maxime Du Camp, wrote Les Convulsions de Paris. Du Camp had witnessed the last days of the Commune, went inside the Tuileries Palace shortly after the fires were put out, witnessed the executions of Communards by soldiers, and the bodies in the streets. He studied the question of the number of dead, and studied the records of the office of inspection of the Paris cemeteries, which was in charge of burying the dead. Based on their records, he reported that between 20 and 30 May, 5,339 corpses of Communards had been taken from the streets or Paris morgue to the city cemeteries for burial. Between 24 May and 6 September, the office of inspection of cemeteries reported that an additional 1,328 corpses were exhumed from temporary graves at 48 sites, including 754 corpses inside the old quarries near Parc des Buttes-Chaumont, for a total of 6,667. Modern Marxist critics attacked du Camp and his book; Collette Wilson called it "a key text in the construction and promulgation of the reactionary memory of the Commune" and Paul Lidsky called it "the bible of the anti-Communard literature." In 2012, however, historian Robert Tombs made a new study of the Paris cemetery records and placed the number killed between 6,000 and 7,000, confirming du Camp's research. Jacques Rougerie, who had earlier accepted the 20,000 figure, wrote in 2014, "the number ten thousand victims seems today the most plausible; it remains an enormous number for the time."
Paris Commune