Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/171

 their ranks. Many, probably, would have run away if they had had a chance; but the fortifications behind them barred the way, and whenever a party came up to the gates, they were rigidly excluded. Numbers, however, congregated all along the covered way behind the glacis, and whenever a party of wounded came in, they made a rush to get inside the city with the convoy.

At Neuilly the firing was quite as heavy as at Asnières and Clichy. In the evening, a body of insurgents made their way through the partition walls of the various houses on the left side of the old Neuilly road, and succeeded in penetrating, unawares, as far as the Rue des Huissiers, within one hundred yards of the bridge of Neuilly, built up a couple of barricades, and armed them with six guns. They immediately opened fire on the Versailles troops in the Avenue de Neuilly, and the movement was executed with great vigor and courage; but it was not likely to be attended with success if large reinforcements could be brought up. The consequence of this manœuvre, brilliant as it was, proved disastrous to the troops of the Commune.

The Versailles forces stormed the barricades with so much impetuosity that the insurgents had no time to get out of the way. Numbers of them were killed, wounded, or taken prisoners. Their six guns were captured and turned against them. They fled in disorder to the gates, volleys of grape being fired into them as they went. The soldiers then made another dash forward, and carried a barricade on the Boulevard Bineau, inflicting serious loss on its defenders. Thereupon the guns on the ramparts began to thunder, their covering parties fired volleys, and an awful din was kept up till daybreak, when the Versailles artillery replied in right earnest, and shelled all the positions, as well as the quarter of the town immediately behind the walls.

This engagement was one of the most sanguinary yet