We were less secure on our extreme left. The Versaillese had early in the day invested the Mont-Parnasse Cemetery, which we held with a handful of men. Near the restaurant Richefeu, the Federals, allowing the enemy to approach, unmasked their mitrailleuses; but in vain, for the Versaillese were numerous enough to surround the few defenders of the cemetery on all sides, and soon stormed it. From there, passing by the ramparts of the fourteenth arrondissement, they arrived at the Place St. Pierre. The fortifications of the Avenue d'Italie and of the Route de Châtillon, long since carefully prepared, but always against the ramparts, were taken in the rear by the Chaussée du Maine, and the whole defence of the cross-roads of the Quatre-Chemins was concentrated round the church. From the top of the steeple about a dozen Federals of Montrouge supported the barricade that barred two-thirds of the Chaussée du Maine, held by thirty men for several hours. At last, their cartridges exhausted, the tricolor flag was hoisted at the mairie, at the same hour that it floated above the Buttes Montmartre. Henceforth the route to the Place d'Enfer was open, and the Versaillese arrived there after having undergone the fire from the Observatoire, where some Federals had made a stand.
Behind these lines thus forced other defences were thrown up, thanks to the care of Wroblewski. The day before, the general, receiving the order to evacuate the forts, had answered, "Is it treachery or a misunderstanding? I will not evacuate." Montmartre taken, the general went to Delescluze, urging him to transfer the defence to the left bank. The Seine, the forts, the Panthéon, the Bièvre, formed, in his opinion, a safe citadel, with the open fields for a retreat; a very just conception this with regular troops, but one cannot at will displace the heart of an insurrection, and the Federals were more and more bent on remaining in their own quarters.
Wroblewski returned to his headquarters, assembled the commanders of the forts, prescribed all the dispositions to be taken for their defence, and came back to resume the command of the left bank, given him by earlier decrees. But on sending orders to the Panthéon, he was answered that Lisbonne commanded there. Wroblewski, undeterred, placed the section left to him in a state of defence. He installed a battery of eight pieces and two batteries of four on the Butte-aux-Cailles, a dominant position between the Panthéon and the forts; he fortified the Boulevards d'Italie, De l'Hôpital, and De la Gare. His headquarters were established at the Mairie des Gobelins, and his reserve at the Place d'Italie, Place Jeanne d'Arc, and at Bercy.
At the other extremities of Paris the fourteenth and twentieth arrondissements also prepared their defence. The brave Passedouet had replaced Du Bisson, who still dared to present himself as chef-de-légion of La Villette. They barricaded the Grande Rue de la Chapelle behind the Strasbourg Railway, the Rues d'Aubervilliers, De Flandre, and the canal, so as to form five lines of defence, protected on the flank by the boulevards and the fortifications. Cannon were placed in the Rue Riquet at the gasworks, while rampart pieces were carried by the men on to the Buttes Chaumont and others to the Rue de Puebla. A battery of six was mounted on the height of the Père Lachaise, covering Paris with its rumbling reports.
A mute and desolate Paris. As on the day before, the shops remained closed, and the streets, bleached by the sun, looked empty and menacing. Estafets riding at full speed, pieces of artillery shifted from their places, combatants on the march, alone broke this solitude. Cries of "Open the shutters!" "Draw up the blinds!" alone interrupted this silence. Two journals, Le Tribun du Peuple and Le Salut Public, were published, notwithstanding the Versaillese shells that were falling into the printing-office of the Rue Aboukir.
A few men at the Hôtel-de-Ville did their best to attend to details. One decree authorised the chiefs of barricades to requisition the necessary implements and victuals; another condemned every house from which Federals were shot at to be burned. In the afternoon the Committee of Public Safety issued an appeal to the soldiers:—
"The people of Paris will never believe that you could raise your arms against them. When they face you your hands will recoil from an act that would be a veritable fratricide.
"Like us, you too are proletarians. That which you did on the 18th March you will do again. Come to us, brothers, come to us; our arms are open to receive you."
The Central Committee at the same time placarded a similar appeal—a puerile but generous illusion; and on this point the people of Paris entirely agreed with their mandatories. In spite of the frenzy of the Assembly, the fusillade of the wounded, the treatment inflicted upon the prisoners for six weeks, the workingmen did not admit that children of the people could rend the entrails of that Paris who combated for them.
At three o'clock M. Bonvalet and other members of the Ligue des Droits de Paris presented themselves at the Hôtel-de-Ville, where some members of the Council and of the Committee of Public Safety received them. They bewailed this struggle, proposed to interfere, as they had so successfully done during the siege, and to carry to M. Thiers the expression of their sorrow; further, they placed themselves at the disposition of the Hôtel-de-Ville. "Well, then," they were answered, "shoulder a gun and go to the barricades!" Before this direct appeal the League fell back upon the Central Committee, which had the weakness to listen to them.