Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/327



"The gratings of the cellars must be guarded with particular care.

"No lights are to be allowed in any quarter attacked.

"Suspected houses are to be set on fire at the first signal.

",

"Chief of the Legion of the X Arrondissement.

"."

While the Commune was thus devoting all its energies in exciting the people to a strenuous resistance, the Versailles troops were steadily advancing. Batteries were established at the Arc de Triomphe, which fired on the Champs Elysées, Place de la Concorde, and Tuileries Gardens. Other batteries, placed on the terrace of the Tuileries by the insurgents, replied from time to time to this fire.

The Palace of Industry, becoming untenable, was abandoned to the Government troops.

While the soldiers of General Douay were thus keeping the insurgents at the Place de la Concorde and the Tuileries in check, a portion of the troops under General Clinchant, advancing down the Faubourg St. Honoré, found the Ministry of the Interior, Place Beauveau, and the Palace of the Elysée abandoned by the Federals. These last had retreated at five in the morning to the Mairie of the Arrondissement Rue d'Anjou. One man, left on guard at the corner of the Rue Duras, hastened at the sound of the approaching chassepots to implore a civilian's dress from the inhabitants, which was accorded him from pity.

The troops were received with loud acclamations and every manifestation of joy, by the people whom they had delivered from the hated rule of the Commune. The red flag which dishonored the Ministry was torn away by a