Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/153

 The advantage round the walls of Paris, for one or two days, was not decidedly with the Versailles troops. Nearly all their attacks on the southern forts of Issy, Vanves and Montrouge had been repulsed. On the morning of the 13th, the engagement became general along the west side of Paris. The object of the regular troops was to release, by a flank movement, a detachment which had been driven on the Grande Latte, an island in the Seine, between the bridges of Asnières and Neuilly. This was a body of men who had recently arrived at Versailles from Breton. At the same time a severe encounter of infantry was going on in the streets of Neuilly and Levallois; the National Guards were obliged to give way, and General Dombrowski was under the necessity of sending for reinforcements. The Avenue de la Grande Armée, and the neighborhood of the Arc de Triomphe, continued to receive its share of projectiles from Mont Valérien and from the bridge at Neuilly. One shell fell as far down the Champs Elysées as the corner of the Rue de Morny, smashing a lamp-post and the butt and truck of a water-carrier. It fortunately did not burst; and a group of spectators, who were standing near, escaped unhurt. Another shell fell in the midst of a battalion of insurgents in Place de l'Etoile. The soldiers were on their way to Port Maillot, beating drums and waving several new flags. Seven men were killed and twenty wounded with the single shell. From that moment spectators were not allowed to go nearer the firing than the Rond-Point on the Champs Elysées. The fusillade continued during the afternoon, but it was difficult, from the ramparts, to form any idea of the result of the fighting near the barricade of the Pont de Neuilly. Later in the day the engagement extended to the left side of the Avenue de Neuilly, which district was still occupied by the Versailles troops.