Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/452

 the punishment of such criminals into their hands and tore them almost to pieces in their fury. Too much cannot be said in praise of the demeanor of the soldiers, who showed throughout extraordinary control over passions which the insurgents had certainly done everything to excite. A soldier falling a prisoner into the hands of the insurgents could expect no mercy. Several were burned to death; among others, M. de Segoyer, commandant of the 26th battalion of chasseurs à pied, was made prisoner by the insurgents at the Place de la Bastille, and having been covered with petroleum was burned alive.

The Federals now held but one strong position, but it was more important than any that had yet been wrested from them. This was the Chateau d'Eau, protected by the Buttes Chaumont, Belleville, and Père-Lachaise. It is true that Chaumont and Belleville were under the fire of Montmartre, but that did not prevent the Federal artillery, installed there, from covering the quarters Saint-Denis and Bonne-Nouvelle with shells.

Seven avenues or boulevards open on the Place du Chateau-d'Eau: Rue de Turbigo, Boulevard Saint-Martin, Boulevard Magenta, Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple, Boulevard des Amandiers, Boulevard du Prince-Eugène (now Boulevard Voltaire), and Boulevard du Temple. At the entrance of each of these streets on the Place, a barricade had been constructed.

General Clinchant advanced by the Boulevards Magenta, Saint Denis and St. Martin; General Douay, by the Conservatoire des Arts-et-Métiers, the Rues de Turbigo and Du Temple; General Ladmirault by La Chapelle and Villette; and General Vinoy by the Bastille.

As may be seen, the different army corps continued to follow their first strategy, the great merit of which was its simplicity. Marshal de MacMahon was, doubtless, inspired by the geometrical axiom—a straight line is the