September 30th.—Early on this day a cannonade of an hour and a half's duration from the southern forts and batteries announced a sortie in that direction. By six o'clock two brigades of the XIIIth French Corps deployed against Thiais and Choisy le Roi. Strong swarms of tirailleurs drove in the outposts of the VIth Corps, and forced the field-guns in position between those two villages to retire; but then the fire of the infantry garrisons checked any further attack on the part of the French. Further to the west a third brigade got into Chevilly and seized a factory on the road to Belle Epine; but its determined attack failed to obtain possession of the whole village. The 11th Division was alarmed in its rearward quarters, and hurried forward to the support of the 12th. The factory was recovered from the French, and the Prussian batteries now opened fire, and worked such havoc among the enemy as he retired on Saussaye, that, shunning the attack of the infantry, he fled in great disorder to Hautes Bruyères and Villejuif. A brigade which had forced its way into L'Hay was in the same way driven back, leaving 120 prisoners for the most part unwounded. In the farmstead at the north entrance of Chevilly, however, the French still held their ground with great obstinacy. Not till they were completely surrounded, and had made an ineffectual attempt to force a passage, did surrender those brave defenders, who numbered about 100.
The whole series of attacks was entirely defeated by about nine o'clock, and General Vinoy vainly endeavoured to incite the diminished battalions at Hautes Bruyères to renew the struggle.
These few morning hours had cost the VIth Corps 28 officers and 413 men; and the French many more.
Two simultaneous feint-attacks on Sèvres and on Mesly on the right bank of the Seine, came to nothing. The German outposts, at first driven in, re-occupied their ground by about nine o'clock.
After thus failing to gain space towards the southward by this sortie, the besieged proceeded to assure themselves of the ground already in their possession by the construction of entrenchments. They fortified Villejuif and extended their lines from Hautes Bruyères past Arcueil to the Mill of Pichon, so that there the Bavarian outposts had to be drawn in nearer to Bourg-la-Reine.
Otherwise, throughout the first half of the month of October the garrison of Paris restricted itself for the most part to daily cannonades. Guns of the heaviest calibre were directed on the most petty objects. It was sheer waste of ammunition, just as though the aim was to get rid of the stores on hand. If one of the gigantic long shells happened to fall on an outpost, the destruction was of course terrible; but on the whole they did little execution.
Apart from the noise of the cannonade to which one soon became accustomed, in Versailles, whence none of the residents had fled, it might have been thought a time of profound peace. The admirable discipline of the German troops allowed the townsfolk to pursue their business undisturbed; the hosts were well paid for the billeting imposed on them, and the country people could cultivate their fields and gardens in peace. At St. Cloud every room was kept in the same order as when the Imperial family had left it, till the shells from Mont Valérien reduced that delightful palace with all its treasures of art to a heap of charred ruins. It was the French fire, too, which wrecked the Château of Meudon, the porcelain factory of Sèvres, and whole villages in the nearer environs. And it was also the French themselves who, without any necessity, felled half the Bois de Boulogne.
The investment line was considerably strengthened on the 10th and 16th of October, when the 17th Division arriving from Toul relieved the 21st at Bonneuil, and the latter took up a position between the Bavarians and the Vth Corps, in the Meudon—Sèvres tract; and when the Guard Landwehr Division came up and occupied St. Germain.
These movements were observed from Paris, and to clear up the situation, General Vinoy advanced at nine o'clock on 13th October with about 26,000 men and 80 guns, against the position held by the IInd Bavarian Corps.
Four battalions of Gardes-Mobiles, protected by the fire of the nearest forts and of field batteries, advanced to the attack of Bagneux, and forced their way over the entrenchments wrecked by artillery fire, into the heart of the place, whence the defenders retired to Fontenay, when at eleven o'clock the French 10th Regiment of the line had also come up. Reinforced by a fresh battalion, and supported by an effective flanking fire from Châtillon, the Bavarians now made so firm a stand that the enemy could make no further progress, but began to put Bagneux in a state of defence. Meanwhile the 4th Bavarian Division had stood to arms, and by about 1.30 General von Bothmer (its commander) moved it up from Sceaux and from Fontenay, and proceeded to surround Bagneux. The barricades erected by the enemy were carried, who however still offered an obstinate resistance in the northern part of the village.