ay, the 23d, was warm and bright, and a terrible day
it was for Maurice. The few hundred federates with whom he was, and in
whose ranks were men of many different battalions, were charged with
the defense of the entire quartier, from the _quai_ to the Rue
Saint-Dominique. Most of them had bivouacked in the gardens of the great
mansions that line the Rue de Lille; he had had an unbroken night's rest
on a grass-plot at one side of the Palace of the Legion of Honor. It was
his belief that soon as it was light enough the troops would move out
from their shelter behind the Corps Legislatif and force them back upon
the strong barricades in the Rue du Bac, but hour after hour passed and
there was no sign of an attack. There was only some desultory firing
at long range between parties posted at either end of the streets. The
Versaillese, who were not desirous of attempting a direct attack on the
front of the formidable fortress into which the insurgents had converted
the terrace of the Tuileries, developed their plan of action with great
circumspection; two strong columns were sent out to right and left that,
skirting the ramparts, should first seize Montmartre and the Observatory
and then, wheeling inward, swoop down on the central quarters,
surrounding them and capturing all they contained, as a shoal of fish
is captured in the meshes of a gigantic net. About two o'clock Maurice
heard that the tricolor was floating over Montmartre: the great battery
of the Moulin de la Galette had succumbed to the combined attack of
three army corps, which hurled their battalions simultaneously on the
northern and western faces of the butte through the Rues Lepic, des
Saules and du Mont-Cenis; then the waves of the victorious troops had
poured back on Paris, carrying the Place Saint-Georges, Notre-Dame de
Lorette, the _mairie_ in the Rue Drouot and the new Opera House, while
on the left bank the turning movement, starting from the cemetery of
Mont-Parnasse, had reached the Place d'Enfer and the Horse Market. These
tidings of the rapid progress of the hostile army were received by the
communards with mingled feelings of rage and terror amounting almost
to stupefaction. What, Montmartre carried in two hours; Montmartre, the
glorious, the impregnable citadel of the insurrection! Maurice saw that
the ranks were thinning about him; trembling soldiers, fearing the
fate that was in store for them should they be caught, were slinking
furtively away to