ight when at an early hour news came of the capture
of Montretout; the tales that were told of the gallant behavior of the
National Guard sounded like epics; the Prussians had been beaten all
along the line, the French would occupy Versailles before night. As
a natural result the consternation was proportionately great when, at
nightfall, the inevitable defeat became known. While the left wing was
seizing Montretout the center, which had succeeded in carrying the outer
wall of Buzanval Park, had encountered a second inner wall, before which
it broke. A thaw had set in, the roads were heavy from the effects of
a fine, drizzling rain, and the guns, those guns that had been cast by
popular subscription and were to the Parisians as the apple of their
eye, could not get up. On the right General Ducrot's column was tardy
in getting into action and saw nothing of the fight. Further effort was
useless, and General Trochu was compelled to order a retreat. Montretout
was abandoned, and Saint-Cloud as well, which the Prussians burned, and
when it became fully dark the horizon of Paris was illuminated by the
conflagration.

Maurice himself this time felt that the end was come. For four hours he
had remained in the park of Buzanval with the National Guards under the
galling fire from the Prussian intrenchments, and later, when he got
back to the city, he spoke of their courage in the highest terms. It was
undisputed that the Guards fought bravely on that occasion; after that
was it not self-evident that all the disasters of the army were to be
attributed solely to the imbecility and treason of its leaders? In the
Rue de Rivoli he encountered bands of men shouting: "Hurrah for the
Commune! down with Trochu!" It was the leaven of revolution beginning to
work again in the popular mind, a fresh outbreak of public opinion,
and so formidable this time that the Government of National Defense,
in order to preserve its own existence, thought it necessary to compel
General Trochu's resignation and put General Vinoy in his place. On that
same day Maurice, chancing to enter a hall in Belleville where a public
meeting was going on, again heard the _levee en masse_ demanded with
clamorous shouts. He knew the thing to be chimerical, and yet it set his
heart a-beating more rapidly to see such a determined will to conquer.
When all is ended, is it not left us to attempt the impossible? All that
night he dreamed of miracles.

Then a long week went b