Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/136

 Communists had met with a decided defeat, and the following correspondence from the Versailles army verifies the view as seen from Paris:

"At none of the encounters between the Prussians and the French around Paris did I see more severe fighting than on Friday evening at the Courbevoie end of the bridge of Neuilly. There was one barricade there and another on the middle of the bridge; it had been resolved to carry those barricades on Friday, with the view of opening a way to Paris by the Avenue de Neuilly. The division of General Montaudon was marched to Courbevoie for the purpose, and that General directed the movements. Generals Pechot and Besson were also on the ground. I saw the action from the glacis of Valérien. At 3 o'clock the enemy opened fire, Valérien throwing 14 and 28 pound shells from 7 and 14 pound guns against Porte Maillot and the insurgents' batteries on the ramparts close to that gate. At the same moment the fire of eight 7-pounders and of four 12-pounders was directed on the tête de pont at the right bank of the river from the Courbevoie road and open space to the left, and the cannon and mitrailleuses of Montaudon's division enfiladed the avenue leading down to the enceinte.

"The insurgents vigorously replied with heavy guns from Porte Maillot and the ramparts, and with a mitrailleuse battery on the banks of the river close to the island. The troops possessed themselves of the houses at the angles of Puteaux and Courbevoie, and from these, at half-past three, commenced a chassepot fire on the insurgents. Dreadful was the thunder of artillery, the running scream of mitrailleuses, and the shrill whizzing of chassepots for a quarter of an hour; the whole of the region of Courbevoie and Neuilly was enveloped in a smoke so thick that one could see the fire blaze from the