estern side maintained a
heavy fire upon those of Montmartre.

Early in the morning all the members of the National Guard of Passy and
Auteuil were summoned to arms and ordered to assist the troops, and were
specially enjoined to maintain order in their rear as they advanced.
Numbers of Communist prisoners were taken by the troops as they worked
their way forward, and upwards of 8,000 were despatched under a strong
escort to Versailles. The order for the National Guard to assemble was
received with intense satisfaction, the younger and unmarried men had
been forced into the ranks of the Communists, but many had during the
last day or two slipped away and remained in hiding, and all were
anxious to prove that it was loyalty and not cowardice that had caused
them to desert.

Cuthbert was out all day watching, from points where he could obtain
shelter from the flying bullets, the advance of the troops. When he
returned he told Mary that everything was going on well so far, but he
added, "The work is really only beginning; the barrier at the Place de
la Concorde and the batteries on the terrace of the Tuileries are really
formidable positions, and I hear that on the south side the advance has
been entirely arrested by one of the barricades there. The Insurgents
never intended to hold the outlying suburbs, and even the batteries on
the Trocadero were built to aid the Forts and not for fighting inside
the walls. You see every yard the troops gain now drives the Communists
closer and closer together, and renders the defence more easy. It may be
a week yet before the Commune is finally crushed. I should think that
before the troops advance much further on this side they will storm
Montmartre, whose batteries would otherwise take them in rear."

The next day three divisions marched against Montmartre, and attacked it
simultaneously on three sides. The Communists here who had throughout
the siege been the loudest and most vehement in their warlike
demonstrations, now showed that at heart they were cowards. Although
their batteries were armed with over a hundred guns, they offered but a
momentary resistance and fled, panic-stricken, in every direction, some
thousands being taken prisoners by the troops. On the other hand,
throughout the rest of Paris, the fighting became more and more severe
and desperate. The Northern Railway Station was defended successfully
throughout the day. On the south side of the river but little progres