Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/336

 Rue Blanche, the Rue Fontaine, and the Rue de Bruxelles, which open on the Boulevard de Clichy.

During the imperial rule large avenues had been opened in every part of Paris, which, in a military point of view, were considered favorable to the suppression of any insurrection, always on the hypothesis that the troops alone would be possessed of artillery. Unfortunately in this case the insurgents possessed cannon—indeed, a great many cannon—together with mitrailleuses of every size and description. It, consequently, became very difficult to take barricades thus defended without an enormous loss of life. Long cannonades and numberless flank movements were the result.

The attack was ordinarily begun by two guns firing alternately at the barricade from the corner of the nearest street. The cannon being charged, was pushed rapidly forward, with the mouth a little beyond the angle of the wall, quickly pointed and discharged, and then withdrawn by means of cords into its former sheltered position. Solid shot was generally employed, it being more efficacious in making a breach in a wall of paving-stones. Bombs and grape-shot were only used by the artillery in the large squares and avenues.

When a sufficient breach was made, the soldiers ran one by one along the sides of the streets, stopping in the doors to fire, and then advancing as before. Others entered the houses, and fired from the windows. The insurgents executed the same manœuvres, hiding in the windows and alleys. These skirmishes often lasted very long, but an assault was rarely necessary; for the insurgents, seeing themselves about to be surrounded, generally abandoned the barricade. One hundred insurgents defended the barricade in the Rue Lepic, while others occupied the houses on the corner, and fired from the windows on the troops. From the manner in which the Federals fought, it was