The revolutionary government called the Commune took power in Paris from 18 March to 28 May 1871. While the troops of the compromise conservative republican government based in Versailles led the second siege of Paris, exposing once more the civilian population to hardship and famine, the Commune leadership enacted the separation of Church and State and other progressive social measures. But the radical experiment was short lived: the French army eventually defeated the Commune at the end of the Bloody Week (“semaine sanglante”) in May 1871.