emy and taking a nip now and then with
the comrades, to see if it would not relieve the terrible fatigue from
which he was suffering. Then, with a light head and heavy legs, he came
and threw himself on the bed in his little chamber; it must have been
through force of instinct, for he could never remember how he got there.
And it was not until the following morning, when the sun was high in the
heavens, that he awoke, aroused by the ringing of the alarm bells,
the blare of trumpets and beating of drums. During the night the
Versaillese, finding a gate undefended, had effected an unresisted
entrance at the Point-du-Jour.

When he had thrown on his clothes and hastened down into the street,
his musket slung across his shoulder by the strap, a band of frightened
soldiers whom he fell in with at the _mairie_ of the arrondissement
related to him the occurrences of the night, in the midst of a confusion
such that at first he had hard work to understand. Fort d'Issy and the
great battery at Montretout, seconded by Mont Valerien, for the last
ten days had been battering the rampart at the Point-du-Jour, as a
consequence of which the Saint-Cloud gate was no longer tenable and an
assault had been ordered for the following morning, the 22d; but someone
who chanced to pass that way at about five o'clock perceived that
the gate was unprotected and immediately notified the guards in the
trenches, who were not more than fifty yards away. Two companies of the
37th regiment of regulars were the first to enter the city, and were
quickly followed by the entire 4th corps under General Douay. All night
long the troops were pouring in in an uninterrupted stream. At seven
o'clock Verge's division marched down to the bridge at Grenelle,
crossed, and pushed on to the Trocadero. At nine General Clinchamp was
master of Passy and la Muette. At three o'clock in the morning the 1st
corps had pitched its tents in the Bois de Boulogne, while at about the
same hour Bruat's division was passing the Seine to seize the Sevres
gate and facilitate the movement of the 2d Corps, General de Cissey's,
which occupied the district of Grenelle an hour later. The Versailles
army, therefore, on the morning of the 22d, was master of the Trocadero
and the Chateau of la Muette on the right bank, and of Grenelle on the
left; and great was the rage and consternation that prevailed among the
Communists, who were already accusing one another of treason, frantic at
the thou