As I continue my road the groups become more numerous. I lift my head and see a shell burst over the Avenue of the Grande Armée, leaving a puff of white smoke hanging for a few seconds like a cloud-flake detached by the wind.
On I go still. The height on which the Arc de Triomphe stands is covered with people; a great many women and children among them. They are mounted on posts, clinging to the projections of the Arch, hanging to the sculpture of the bas-reliefs. One man has put a plank upon the tops of three chairs, and by paying a few sous the gapers can hoist themselves upon it. From this position one can perceive a motionless, attentive crowd reaching down the whole length of the Avenue of the Grande Armée, as far as the Porte Maillot, from which a great cloud of white smoke springs up every moment followed by a violent explosion,—it is the cannon of the ramparts firing on the Rond Point of Courbevoie; and beyond this the Avenue de Neuilly stretching far out in the sunshine, deserted and dusty, a human form crossing it rapidly from time to time; and farthest of all, beyond the Seine, beyond the Avenue de l’Empereur, deserted too, the hill of Courbevoie, where a battery of the Versailles troops is established. But stretch my eyes as I may I cannot distinguish the guns; but a few men, sentinels doubtless, can be made out. They are sergents de ville, says my right-hand neighbour; but he on my left says they are Pontifical Zouaves. They must have good eyes to recognise the uniforms at this distance. The most contradictory rumours circulate as to the barricade on the bridge; it is impossible for one to ascertain whether it has remained in the possession of the soldiers or the Federals. There has been but little fighting, moreover, since I came. A little later, at twelve o’clock, the fusillade ceases entirely. But the battery on the ramparts continues to fire upon Courbevoie, and Mont Valérien still shells Neuilly at intervals. Suddenly a flood of dust, coming from Porte Maillot, thrusts back the thick of the crowd, and as it flies, widening, and whirling more madly as it comes, everyone is seized with terror, and rushes away screaming and gesticulating. A shell has just fallen, it is said, in the Avenue of the Grande Armée. Not a soul remains about the Triumphal Arch. The adjoining streets are filled with people who have run to take shelter there. By little and little, however, the people begin to recover themselves, the flight is stopped in the middle, and, laughing at their momentary panic, they turn back again. A quarter of an hour afterwards the crowd is everywhere as compact as before.
Place de La Concorde and Champs Elysees, from the Gardens of the Tuileries—Federalists going out to fight the Versaillais:
This panorama gives an idea of the theatre of operations of the Second Siege of Paris. The Prussians closed the eastern enceinte, whilst the Federals held the southern forts to the last, with the exception of Issy and Vanves that were abandoned. Point-du-Jour and Porte Maillot were the parts particularly attacked; the former being defended by the Federal gunboats on the Seine. Mont Valérien, it will be seen, commands the whole of the distant plateau. About one mile and a half beyond the Triumphal Arch the river Seine intersects the space from south to north, enclosing the Bois de Boulogne and the villages of Neuilly, Villiers, and Courcelles, being a sort of outer fortification. The walls of Paris follow the same line, falling about half a mile on the other side of the Arch, and parallel runs a line of railway within the fortified wall. This view exhibits the portion the Prussians were permitted to occupy for two days: all the outlets, except the west, being barricaded and defended.
This spectacle, however, of combatants and gapers distresses me, and in despair of learning anything I return into the city.
At some distance from the scene of events one gets better information, or, at any rate, a great deal more of it. Imagination has better play when it is farther from the fact. A hundred absurd stories reach me. What appears tolerably certain is, that the Federals have received a check, not very important in itself, the Versailles troops having made but little advance, but at any rate a check which might have some influence on the resolution of the National Guards. They have been told that the army would not fight, that the soldiers of the line would turn the butt-ends of their guns into the air at Neuilly as they had done at Montmartre. But now they begin to believe that the army will fight, and those who cry the loudest that it was the sergents de ville and Charette’s Zouaves who led the attack alone, seem as if they said it to give themselves courage and keep up their illusions.
But from which side did the first shot come? On this point everyone has something to say, and no one knows what to believe. Official reports are looked for with the utmost impatience. The walls, generally so communicative, are mute up to this hour. The least improbable of the versions circulated is the following: At break of day some shots are said to have been exchanged between the Federal advanced guard and the patrols of the Versailles troops. None dead or wounded; only powder wasted, happily. A little later, and a few minutes after the arrival of General Vinoy at Mont Valérien, a messenger with a flag of truce, preceded by a trumpeter and accompanied by two sergents de ville (inevitably), is said to have presented himself at the bridge of Courbevoie. The name of the messenger has been given,—Monsieur Pasquier, surgeon-in-chief to the regiment of mounted gendarmes. Two of the National Guards go to meet him; after some words exchanged, one of the Federals blows out Monsieur Pasquier’s brains with his revolver, and ten minutes later Mont Valérien opens a formidable fire, which continues as fiercely four hours afterwards.
Meanwhile the drams beat to arms, on all sides. A considerable number of battalions defile along the Boulevard Montmartre; more than twenty thousand men, some say, who pretend to know. On they march, singing and shouting “Vive la Commune! Vive la République!” They are answered by a few shouts. These are not the Montmartre and Belleville guards alone; peaceful faces of citizens and merchants may be seen under the military képis, and many hands are white as no workman’s are. They march in good order,—they are calm and resolved; one feels that these men are ready to die for a cause that they believe to be just. I raise my hat as they pass; one must do honour to those who, even if they be guilty, push their devotion so far as to expose themselves to death for their convictions.