Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/484



"While General du Barrail with his cavalry was capturing Forts Montrouge, Bicêtre, and Ivry, General de Cissey was executing brilliant operations, which have had the effect of procuring us the whole of the left bank of the Seine.

"General Vinoy, following the course of the river, marched towards the Bastille, which bristled with formidable entrenchments. He carried this position with General Vergé's division; and subsequently, with the aid of divisions under Generals Bruat and Faron, he obtained possession of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine as far as the Place du Trône.

"Our flotilla has afforded General Vinoy brilliant and efficacious assistance. The latter's troops carried to-day a formidable barricade at the corner of the Avenue Philippe Auguste, and one at Montreuil. They have thus taken up a position to the east, at the foot of the heights of Belleville, the last refuge of this insurrection, whose leaders in their flight resort to incendiarism as the monstrous revenge for their defeat

"In the centre, General Douay has followed the lines of the boulevards, resting his right on the Bastille and his left on the Cirque Napoleon.

"General Clinchant, who joined General Ladmirault in the west, has had to overcome a desperate resistance at the Magasins-Réunis, which, however, he has valiantly subdued.

"Lastly, General Ladmirault, after vigorously carrying the Northern and Eastern Railways, has taken the direction of La Villette, and occupied a position at the foot of the Buttes Chaumont

"Thus two-thirds of the army, after having conquered the whole of the ground on the right bank, are now ranged at the foot of the Belleville heights, which they are to attack to-morrow morning.