Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/42

 line, were now swarming with National Guards flushed with victory, swaggering round superintending the construction of barricades, erecting batteries in which to place the captured cannon. Instead of the government blocking up every street, and placing a cordon of soldiers around Montmartre, with cannon pointing up, the insurgents were blockading them now with barricades and batteries, in which were guns pointing down! Drums were beating, trumpets braying, with every indication of very serious work.

Several pieces of the artillery of General Susbielle were lost while the cannon were being removed from the Buttes. Some boys had cut the traces, unseen by the drivers, and a number of National Guards suddenly fell on the guns and carried them off.

By two o'clock the troops had all been withdrawn from the vicinity of Montmartre. Several cannon which the artillerymen had retaken were abandoned by them near the Mairie, where the women and children precipitated themselves on the pieces to preserve them.

At this moment the Butte Montmartre and the artillery in the intrenched camp were completely in the power of the insurgents, who continued the erection of barricades in view of a renewed attack. The horse of the captain of chasseurs was cut up by the soldiers of the line who had mutinied, and sold on the Place, the proceeds of which they used for the purchase of liquor to cement their criminal union with the insurgents, who assured them the committee had plenty of money, or would soon have; and that the continuance of their pay, or better, was a certainty, with less to do and better food. The 100th and 181st battalion of the National Guard now arrived by the Rue des Martyrs, to take possession of the Heights of Montmartre. They were received with the loudest applause.