Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/316

 *mense crowd promenaded the boulevards, and filled the cafés until long after midnight. Delescluze himself, to whom the news was brought at four in the morning, refused to credit it, and even when convinced of the truth of the statement, issued the following proclamation:

"The observatory of the Arc de Triomphe denies the entrance of the Versaillese; at least, nothing has been seen which resembles it.

"The Commandant Renard, of that section, has just left my cabinet, and he affirms that there has only been a panic, and that the gate of Auteuil has not been forced; that if the Versaillese presented themselves, they were repulsed.

"I have sent eleven battalions of reinforcements by as many officers of the staff, who will not leave them until they have conducted them to the posts they are to occupy.

""

At about four o'clock Monday morning the vast movement for the occupation of Paris really began. This great and difficult strategic combination, conducted with as much energy as ability, and with unhesitating unity of action, was but the continuation of the plan followed from the beginning of this horrible civil war. Outside, the insurgents, from Asnières to Montrouge, had been made to recede step by step toward the ramparts—their principal positions had been successively taken from them. The fortifications once passed, the same operation was continued on a concentric line, almost parallel with the outer line of investment.

The troops marched always in advance, enclosing the Communists in an immense semicircle, which gradually narrowed, until the insurgents were thrown back on their last places of refuge—on the left bank towards the Gobelins and the Salpêtrière, and on the right toward the