Page:The Rise and Fall on the Paris Commune in 1871.djvu/489

 the Rue de Charonne to the Faubourg du Temple, and in all the Popincourt quarter, the fight was general, ardent and pitiless. The National Guards were killed behind the barricades, refusing to yield, and the troops remained intrepid and firm under a rain of balls sent from every window.

At Belleville, where the capture of the barricades required the most energetic efforts, and inflicted sensible losses on the regular army, the insurgents held out, as well as in the lower quarters, until all their ammunition was exhausted—until the last fortified work was completely destroyed.

Finally, towards two o'clock, the fire slackened; shots were only to be heard at intervals; the cries ceased at the different points of contest; the battle of seven days, begun on the 21st of May, was approaching its end.

At three o'clock, a body of about four hundred insurgents descended from the heights of Belleville; they came to surrender themselves prisoners.

At their head marched four members of the Commune, preceded by a lieutenant of the staff bearing a red flag. They all carried their guns reversed, in sign of mourning, advancing silently; and, criminal as was this revolt, this sad procession could not be looked upon without emotion.

Arrived at the canal, when about to place themselves in the hands of the troops, they all threw down their arms, and were immediately surrounded and marched away.

A large number of the insurgents had escaped by the side-streets, falling back towards Montreuil and Vincennes, but they were met in their retreat by the Prussian lines, where all passage was refused them. Any refuge was henceforth impossible. On the left bank, the southern forts of Ivry, Bicêtre and Montrouge, which had remained in possession of the Commune until the occupation of Paris, had belonged for two days to the legal Government. The