THE FIGHTING IN THE STREETS OF PARIS.

Grey River Argus, Volume XI, Issue 943, 4 August 1871, Page 2

THE FIGHTING IN THE STREETS OF PARIS.

The Daily News correspondent, writing from Paris, says: — "The tidings were unpleasant which greeted Dombrowski when he rode into the Institution de Ste. Perine at seven o'clock last night, which was occupied as a kind of minor EtatMajor. It was the commandant of the 93rd National Guard Battalion who had come to us in the Chateau de la Muetie, to tell Dombrowski how his men had been driven from the gate of Billancourt at five in the afternoon. From what he could hurriedly gather, there had been a kind of rally. National Guards had crowded the shattered banquette of the enceinte, and lined the smashed casemates between the gate Billancourt and the Point dv Jour, and further northward to and beyond the gate of St. Cloud. They had held to the positions with considerable tenacity xinder a terrible fire, but had been driven back with heavy loss, mainly by the close and steady shooting of the Versaillist artillery in the breaching batteries about Boulogne, and the batteries at Brimborion. The gate of St. Cloud, as well as that of Point dv Jour, had followed that of Billancourt, into tho hands of the Versaillists, who having occupied the enceinte in force, and the adjacent houses behind it, were detaching strong parties to make reconnaissances up the Rues Lemarrois and Billancourt, one of which at least had been as far as the railway, but had been driven back. Dombrowski smiled as this news was communicated to him, and I thought of his { second line of defence,' and of his assurance that the ( situation was not compromised.' By this time it was nearly nine o clock, and it seemed to me that the VersaiUists must have got cannon on to the enceinte, the fire came so hot and heavy about and into the Institution de Ste. Perine. Dombrowski and his staff were very active and daring, and the heart of the troops seemed good. There was some cheering at the order to advance, and the troops — consisting chiefly of Franc-tireurs and men dressed in a Zouave dress, so far as I could see in the gloom — were moved briskly up into the Rue de la Municipalite. A couple of guns — field guns I fear — were got into position on the Ceinture Railway to the left of the Rue de la Municipalite', and under their cover the infantry debouched with a rush. I saw of cavalry only a few scattered pickets. Soon there was a partial disorganisation, the result of a hot and close infantry fire that came seemingly from over a wall which I learned bounded the Cimetiere des Pauvres. The Federals broke right and left. Some made round the corner of the Rue de Michel-Ange, which bounds the cemetery on the right, under the passionate leadership of ayoung staff officer whom I had noticed in the Chateau de la Muette at dinner time. There was a close fusilade, and, I believe, an an attempt, which was partly successful, to storm the cemetery, taking it on three sides. It was said that Dombrowski himself headed the direct attack, but the locality was too warm for me to satisfy myself quite fully on this point. Meanwhile there seemed to be almost hand-to-hand fighting going on all around in the space between the enceinte and railway. 1 could hear the incessant whistle and patter of the bullets, and the yells and cursing of the men, not a few of whom owed what courage they displayed to profuse libations. Every now and then there was a cheer and a rush, then a volley, which seemed to stay the rush, and then a stampede back under cover. ' By half-past ten it was obvious that the fight was nearly out of the Communists. Dombrowski I had long lost sight of. One officer told me that he had been killed in the churchyard, another that his horse had been shot under him, and that the last he had seen of the daring little fellow was fighting with his sword a Versailles marine. There came a panic, in the thick of which I made good my retreat behind the second line of defence, which was not easily recognisable as a line of defence at all. I fear Dombrowski must have been gasconading. Once behind the railway the Communist troops took up and kept the new ground with stubbornness. One or two attacks were made by detached parties of Versaillists, judging by the hot bursts of fire ; but this gradually died away, and soon after eleven o'clock the quietness had become so great that I thought the work was over for the night, and that Dombrowski's anticipations had been realised to the letter.

"The pause was deceptive. The Versaillists must have simply held their hands for a time to make the blow heavier when it should fall. No doubt they had combinations to execute elsewhere. No doubt they were pouring into the area between the enceinte and the Ceinture Railway. They were quiet for a purpose jwhile they were doing this, lining the enceinto and packing the thoroughfares with artillery. We could hear in the

distance in our rear the jOikrale being beaten in the streets of Paris. A staff officer who spoke English like a native, and who was as black as a nigger from powder smoke, came to where I lurked, and told me how he mistrusted the pause, and feared that the supreme honr had come at last. The supreme hour had come. It was two o'clock in the morning. Suddenly a tremendous fire opened on . the railway. Shell after shell, showers of shells poured upon it and the vicinity;.*"' a hail of musketry pattered upon it. The Communists did essay a reply. I will do them the justice to say that, btiCit was terribly weak and casual. Then there suddenly came on the wind the close din of heavy firing from the north. Lheard some shout "We are surrounded, the Versaillists are pouring in by the gates of Anteuil, Passy, and LaMeutte!" This was enough. A mad panic set in. The cry rose of "Sauve quitrahis!" Arms and packs were thrown down, and every one bolted at the top of his speed, the officers leading to all seeming. I came on one party — a little detachment of Francstireurs — standing fast behind the projection of a house, and calling out that all the chiefs had run away and left them. Whether this was the case as regards .'the highest commands I cannot tell. I don't think Dombrowski was the man to run, nor any of his staff. But certainly none of them were to be seen. There was a cry, too, that there was an invasion from the south, and so men surged and struggled and blasphemed confusedly np the Quai in dire confusion, shot and shell ever chasing them as they went. In the extremity of panic, mingled with rage, men blazed off their pieces indiscriminately, and struck each other with the clubbed ends. Then battalions or detachments were met coming up, upon which surged the tide of fugitives, imparted to them their panic, and carried them away in their rush. I can hardly tell how or wEy I found myself on the Place dv Roi'de Rome, as nearly as possible as I could guess, at half-past five in the morning— my watch had run down. The battery was silent and deserted ; the guns -had. been carried off. Looking down tbe Boulevard de l'Empereur I saw a battery of horse artillery coming up it at a walk, with detachments of sailors on the sidewalks. Afew Communist corpses were lying about the battery. What were those troops advancing with a deliberation so equable ? Not, surely, the beaten and, panic-stricken men of the Commune. No, that could not be ; they were M'Mahon's men coming on to the Trocadero. I did not wait for them, but made for a aide street towards the Champs Elysees. I came out on the beautif'il avenue, about midway between the Arch of Triumph and the Rond Pont ; and, lo ! round the noble pile which commemorates French valor stood several battalions of men in red breeches. They were packed there seemingly as densely as had been the Bavarians on the Ist March, but they were not so pacific. There was no fire being delivered, from the big barricade at the Place de la Concorde end of the Tuileries gardens, but National Guards were showing about it, and now and then making a pot at the dense masses of the Versaillists. They, for their part, seemed to take things very deliberately, and to f make quite sure of their ground before | advancing. They had a field battery in action just below the Arch, which swept the Champs Elysees very neatly; I saw several shells explode about the Place de la Concorde, and was very glad when I had run the gauntlet, and was on the further side of the avenue of the Elysian Fields. Penetrating casually in a northwesterly direction, I found danger again in the Rue Billault — a side-street, nearly parallel to the Avenue de la Reine Hortense, which extends away from the Arch of Triumph, nearly at right angles to the Champs Elysees. In this avenue a person I spoke with told me the Versaillists had come upon the Communists throwing up a barricade, and had saved them the trouble of completing it by taking it from them at the point of the bayonet. There I got very nearly shut in, for as I talked there was a shout, and here were toe Versaillista, even with artillery at their head, coming marching down the Avenue Friedland toward the Boulevard Haussmann. I was just in time to dodge across their front, and then, tracking them by side streets, I found they pressed on steadily, firing not much, but still somewhat, till they reached the open space near the top of the Boulevard Haussmann, in front of the Caserne de la Pepniere. Here was a noble position and no mistake. From it they could sweep the Boulevard Malesherbes, straight down to the Madeleine, and so open up their way into the Rue Royale, and down it into the back of the barricade at its end facing the Place de la Concorde' There, too, they could sweep the Boulevard Haussman along its whole length, and by a steady fire along through these thoroughfares so far prevent concen| tration, and cut that part of Paris practically into three slices. Re-crossing the Boulevard Haussmann I made my way. by devious paths towards the Palais Royal. Shells seemed* to be bursting all over the city. They were time-fuse shells ; and I could see many of them burst in a white puff of smoke high . in the air. Several fell on and about the Bourse as I was passing, and. the neighborhood was silent and deserted, save for National Guards in small parties, or singly, hurrying backwards and forwards. I could hot tell whether they were advancing or retreating. Everywhere burricades were being hastily thrown up, but I dodged them all till I got to the* Place dv Palais Royal. Here two- barricades were being constructed, one: across the neck of she Rue St. Honore, another across the neck of the Rue de Rivolii For the latter the material was chiefly furnished by a great number of articles not unknown in England under the name of Sommier Tucker, which was hnrriedly pitched out of the windows of the establishment, and of: mattresses from the Guards barracks at the Tuileries. The Rue St Honore barricade was formed of, paving-stones cabs and carriages, andil| "was compelled, nolens volens, to assist in the construction of it. It is pleasant, j even if you are forced to do a thing,' to attempt doing it in a satisfactory manner ; and, observing that an embrasure had been neglected in the construction of of the barricade, I devoted my energies to remedying this defect. I was nol* sorry, however, to be released from my task after a quarter of an hour's work, the - more so as the shell-fire was increasing in warmth and proximity. I noticed that, from the great barricade at the top of St. Honore, the Communists had got one gun at least into action, and were using it to fire somewhere in the direction of the Arch

of Triumph. It was impossible to fulfil my original intention, which was to cross to the Ministry of War, which 1 judged wottld form an interesting, if not an edifying spectacle ; therefore I returned in the direction of the New Ooera House. Crossing the Boulevard, I noticed that the VersaiJlists must have gained the Made" leine, between wbich and their position at the Pepiniere Barracks no-obßtodoJiL the shape of a barricade intervened, for they had thrown up across the end of the Boulevard de la Madeleine a barricade of trees and casks. It was, as it turned out, not a barricade, but an emplacement for artillery. The Communists had atemporary barricade, chiefly provision wagons, across the Boulevard at the head of the Rue de la Paix. By half-past nine the Versaillists had advanced considerably down the Boulevard Haussmann, which they swept with a heavy musketry fire. Two lads were shot down close to me at the end of the Rue de Layfayette. There was no return fire of any account. Many Convj munists passed, falling back, declaring as usual that they had been betrayed. As I stood, there was a scrimmage at a rough, hastily-thrown-up barricado in the Boulevard Haussmann, about 500 yards nearer Pepiniere than the Rue de Lafayette. It was carried by the Versaillists marines. I could see them jumping up on the barricades. Everywhere, as I learn, the Versaillists were led by gendarmes and sailors or marines. The National Guards fell back, dodging behind lamp-posts and in doorways, and firing wildly as they retreated.' This drew a still heavier fire from the Versailles barricade. The Communists retreated ever, throwing up barricades everywhere, so that circulation became almost impossible. This was crushing fire, and the barricade was soon shattered. As I conclude the Communists seem demoralised, yet are working hard everywhere at barricades, and the g&nSrale is sounding. No Generals are to be found."