“Issy is taken! Issy is not taken! Mégy[74] has delivered it up! Eudes
holds it still.”
I have heard nothing but contradictory news since this morning. Is Fort
Issy in the hands of the Versailles troops—yes or no? Hoping to get
better information by approaching the scene of conflict, I went to the
Porte d’Issy, but returned without having succeeded in learning
anything.
There were but few people in that direction; some National Guards,
sheltered by a casemate, and a few women, watching for the return of
their sons and husbands, were all I saw. The cannonading was terrific;
in less than a quarter of an hour I heard five shells whistle over my
head.
Towards twelve o’clock the drawbridge was lowered, and I saw a party of
about sixty soldiers, dusty, tired, and dejected, advancing towards me.
These were some of the “revengers of the Republic.”
“Where do you come from?” I asked them.
“From the trenches. There were four hundred of us, and we are all that
remain.”
But when I asked them whether the Fort of Issy were taken, they made no
answer.
Following the soldiers came four men, bearing a litter, on which a dead
body lay stretched; and it was with this sad procession that I
re-entered Paris. From time to time the men deposited their load on the
ground, and went into a wine-shop to drink. I took advantage of one of
these moments when the corpse lay abandoned, to lift the cloak that had
been spread over it. It was the body of a young man, almost a lad; his
wound was hidden, but the collar of his shirt was dyed crimson with
blood. When the men returned for the third time, their gait was so
unsteady that it was with difficulty they raised the poor boy’s bier,
and then went off staggering. At the turning of a street the corpse
fell, and I ran up as it was being picked from the ground; one of the
drunken men was shedding tears, and maudling out, “My poor brother!”