Five Jesuit priests executed as hostages by the Paris Commune in May 1871 are commemorated in this composite CDV: Pierre Olivaint, Léon Ducoudray, Jean Caubert, Alexis Clerc, and Anatole de Bengy. The card is an illustrated memorial edition rather than a direct photographic portrait, its front bearing the publisher's imprint of A. Josse, éditeur, rue de Sèvres, 31, Paris, placing it squarely in the immediate aftermath of the executions. The reverse carries the studio imprint of Lopez, 40, rue Condorcet, Paris.

The composition arranges five oval bust portraits within an elaborate engraved cartouche of scrolling acanthus foliage and ribbon banners, surmounted by a decorative bow suspending a cross. Each portrait is individually captioned with its subject's name, Olivaint centered at the top, Ducoudray and de Bengy flanking in the middle row, and Clerc and Caubert at the bottom. The Christogram IHS appears at the center of the composition, and the Latin motto "Ibant Gaudentes" unfurls across the upper ribbon, a phrase drawn from the Acts of the Apostles meaning "they went rejoicing."

On May 26, 1871, as the Paris Commune entered its final hours, some sixty hostages were shot on the rue Haxo, among them five Jesuits including Father Pierre Olivaint, superior of the Jesuit community on the rue de Sèvres. The bodies of all five were subsequently interred in a side chapel of the residence on the rue de Sèvres, now the Église Saint-Ignace. Their cause for beatification has been advanced in the Roman Catholic Church, and they are venerated as martyrs of the Commune.

The reverse is inscribed in pencil at the upper edge "Louise Michel" ("Louise Michel"), with the Lopez studio imprint printed in red script below, and cataloging notations in pencil at the lower left reading "3/29/10," "LBCAFG1," and "Eb."