Commune

The Commune, the revolutionary Paris Commune of 1871, functions in Gaston Leroux's The Phantom of the Opera as the indispensable historical substratum of the entire narrative. It is not merely a distant political event but the very force that shaped the physical labyrinth beneath the Paris Opera House, the secret passages and dungeons that Erik later claimed as his kingdom. The novel repeatedly returns to the Commune to explain how the Opera's underground world came to be, and ultimately to account for the discovery of Erik's own skeleton, making the Commune the historical key that unlocks the ghost's most hidden secrets.

The Commune and the Construction of the Opera's Cellars

The novel establishes that the Opera's underground passages were not built by Erik but were a product of the Commune's occupation of the building. After the events of 18 March, the Federates, the Commune's soldiers, took over the opera-house and transformed it for their own purposes. They made a starting-place at the very top for their Mongolfier balloons, which carried their incendiary proclamations to the departments, and a state prison at the very bottom. It was during this period that the secret passage, later known as the Communists' Road, was contrived to allow the jailers to convey their prisoners straight to the dungeons that had been constructed for them in the cellars. This passage, long known to Erik alone, became the very route by which he reached Christine Daae's dressing-room and imposed upon her innocence, and later the path by which Raoul de Chagny and the Persian descended into his domain. The Commune, therefore, inadvertently provided the architectural skeleton of Erik's entire underground empire.

Erik's Role as a Contractor During the Commune

The Persian's narrative reveals that Erik himself was one of the chief contractors under Philippe Garnier, the architect of the Opera, and that he continued to work by himself when the works were officially suspended during the war, the siege of Paris and the Commune. This detail is crucial, for it explains how Erik was able to build his house on the lake within the double case of the foundation-walls of the Opera, a feat that would have been impossible for an outsider. The suspension of official work during the Commune gave Erik the opportunity to construct his hidden dwelling, and his position as a contractor gave him the knowledge and access to do so. The Commune, by interrupting the Opera's construction, created the very conditions that allowed the ghost to establish his lair.

The Commune's Victims and the Discovery of Erik's Skeleton

The novel's prologue directly connects the Commune to the fate of the Opera ghost's remains. The narrator, having discovered a corpse while digging in the substructure of the Opera before burying the phonographic records of the artist's voice, is able to prove that this corpse was that of the Opera ghost. He notes that the wretches who were massacred under the Commune in the cellars of the Opera were not buried on this side, and that their skeletons can be found in a spot not very far from that immense crypt which was stocked during the siege with all sorts of provisions. This distinction is vital: the narrator insists that the body he found was not a victim of the Commune, but Erik himself, and he dismisses the papers that pretend otherwise. The Commune's massacres, therefore, serve as a false explanation for the ghost's remains, a misdirection that the narrator must correct. The discovery of Erik's skeleton near the little well, in the place where the Angel of Music first held Christine Daae fainting in his trembling arms, is thus framed against the backdrop of the Commune's own buried dead, emphasizing the ghost's unique and singular fate.

The Commune's Legacy in the Narrative's Structure

The Commune's influence extends beyond mere background detail to shape the very structure of the novel's revelations. The secret passage of the Communists, with its planking falling to pieces in parts, and the trap-door through which Raoul and the Persian penetrated into the cellars, are both discovered by the narrator in the epilogue, confirming the historical reality of the ghost's domain. The initials "R" and "C" traced on the walls of the Communists' dungeon, standing for Raoul de Chagny, serve as a tangible link between the historical Commune and the personal tragedy of the novel's characters. The Commune, therefore, is not just a historical event but a narrative device that grounds the fantastic elements of the story in a verifiable reality, allowing the narrator to claim that the ghost's existence can no longer be denied. The Commune's legacy is thus both architectural and narrative, providing the physical spaces and the historical evidence that make the Opera ghost's story credible.