In 1870 the Grand Orient de France numbered around 18,000 Freemasons and the Scottish Rite around 6,000. March 1871 saw the start of the Paris Commune, in which Parisian Freemasons were heavily involved. Thirifocq, a militant socialist and member of the le libre Examen lodge of the Supreme Council of France, demanded that Masonic banners be set up on Paris's ramparts and that they should be avenged should they be torn by the bullets of the anti-Commune forces. Many Freemasons figured among the revolutionaries, including Jules Vallès and Élisée Reclus. On 29 April 1871 several thousand Freemasons of both obediences gathered behind dozens of banners for a large demonstration gathered before the Versaillan forces. This demonstration was followed by a meeting between two emissaries of the Commune (including Thirifocq) and Adolphe Thiers, which ended in failure and in the crushing of the Commune by the Versaillans. Unlike the Parisian lodges, those in the provinces did not support the Commune, on whose fall the Grand Orient officially disavowed the action of the Parisian lodges and rallied to Thiers and the French Third Republic, in which it was to play a leading role.