Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/180



are the innocent victims of this struggle.
 * in a word, all non-combatants surrounded at Neuilly, who

"General Dombrowski, in accord with Citizens Bonvallet and Stupuy, of the Union Républicaine des Droits de Paris, will take the necessary military dispositions, that the suspension of arms and statu quo may be strictly maintained. This suspension will take place during the day.

"As soon as a response from Versailles is received, the day and duration of the armistice will be arranged.

", "The Delegate of War."

For three weeks the inhabitants of Neuilly had been obliged to live in their cellars, in a starving condition.

On the night of the 22d of April, the movement of the regular troops in the peninsula of Gennevilliers was so marked that all Paris believed a general attack was about to be made from that side. The rappel was beaten at the Ternes and Batignolles. The cannon that had been conveyed for the last few days to the ramparts were put in position, and directed on Gennevilliers. The night, however, was calm—more calm than the preceding ones, its silence only being broken by the battery of Asnières, which continued its duel with the Chateau of Bécon.

At seven in the morning the columns of Versailles soldiers took the route along the Seine, in the direction of Clichy and St. Ouen. A bridge of boats had been thrown across the Seine above Clichy, at the narrowest point of the river; and, favored by the fogginess of the morning, the soldiers of the Assembly were advancing on the village. The plan was clear. Clichy taken, Levallois could be surrounded, and the insurgents who remained on the right side of the river, in front of Asnières, were cut off from the rest of the army.

Dombrowski, informed of the movement, hurriedly col