  LaMnO$_3$ is considered as a prototypical Jahn-Teller perovskite compound,
exhibiting a metal to insulator transition at $T_{JT} = 750K$ related to the
joint appearance of an electronic orbital ordering and a large lattice
Jahn-Teller distortion. From first-principles, we revisit the behavior of
LaMnO$_3$ and show that it is not only prone to orbital ordering but also to
charge ordering. Both charge and orbital orderings appear to be enabled by
rotations of the oxygen octahedra and the subtle competition between them is
monitored by a large tetragonal compressive strain, that is itself a
Jahn-Teller active distortion. Equally, the competition of ferromagnetic and
antiferromagnetic orders is slave of the same tetragonal strain. Our results
further indicate that the metal to insulator transition can be thought as a
Peierls transition that is enabled by spin symmetry breaking. Therefore,
dynamical spin fluctuations in the paramagnetic state stabilize the insulating
phase by the instantaneous symmetry breaking they produce and which is properly
captured from static DFT calculations. As a basis to our discussion, we
introduce canonical notations for lattice distortions in perovskites that
distort the oxygen octhedra and are connected to charge and orbital orderings.
