It was on the day of the 18th of March, exactly six months after the
appearance of Prussians beneath the walls of Paris, that the Government
had chosen for the repression of the rebellion. At four o’clock in the
morning, the troops of the army of Paris received orders to occupy the
positions that had been assigned to them. All were to take part in the
action, but it is just to add here that the most arduous and fatiguing
part fell to the share of the Lustielle division, composed of the
Paturel brigade (17th battalion of Chasseurs), and of the Lecomte
brigade (18th battalion of Chasseurs). Three regiments of infantry were
entrusted with the guard of the Hôtel de Ville; another, the 89th,
mounted guard at the Tuileries. The Place de la Bastille was occupied
by a battalion of the 64th, and two companies of the 24th. Three other
battalions remained confined to barracks on the Boulevard du Prince
Eugene. The Rue de Flandre, the Rue de Puebla, and the Rue de Crimée
were filled with strong detachments of Infantry; a battalion of the
Republican Guard and the 35th Regiment of Infantry were drawn up in the
neighbourhood of the Buttes Chaumont. The whole quarter around the
Place Clichy was occupied by the Republican Guard, foot Chasseurs,
mounted gendarmes, Chasseurs d’Afrique, and a half battery of
artillery. Other troops, starting from this base-line of operation,
were led up the heights of Montmartre, together with companies of
Gardiens de la Paix (the former Sergents-de-Ville converted into
soldiers). At six o’clock in the morning the first orders were
executed; the Gardiens de la Paix surrounded a hundred and fifty or two
hundred insurgents appointed to guard the park of artillery, and the
troops made themselves masters of all the most important points. The
success was complete. Nothing remained to be done but to carry off the
guns. Unhappily, the horses which had been ordered for this purpose did
not arrive at the right moment. The cause of this fatal delay remains
still unknown, but it is certain that they were still on the Place de
la Concorde at the time when they ought to have been harnessed to the
guns at Montmartre. Before they arrived, agitation had broken out and
spread all over the quarter. The turbulent population, complaining in
indignant tones of circulation being stopped, insulted the sentinels
placed at the entrances of the streets, and threatened the artillerymen
who were watching them. At the same time, the Central Committee caused
the rappel to be beaten, and towards seven o’clock in the morning ten
or twelve thousand National Guards from the arrondissements of
Batignolles, Montmartre, La Villette, and Belleville poured into the
streets. Crowds of lookers-on surrounded the soldiers who were mounting
guard by the recaptured pieces, the women and children asking them
pleadingly if they would have the heart to fire upon their brothers.
Meanwhile, about a dozen tumbrils, with their horses, had arrived on
the heights of the Buttes, the guns were dragged off, and were quietly
proceeding down hill, when, at the corner of the Rue Lepic and the Rue
des Abbesses, they were stopped by a concourse of several hundred
people of the quarter, principally women and children. The foot
soldiers, who were escorting the guns, forgetting their duty, allowed
themselves to be dispersed by the crowd, and giving way to perfidious
persuasion, ended by throwing up the butt ends of their guns. These
soldiers belonged to the 88th Battalion of the Lecomte brigade. The
immediate effect of their disaffection was to abandon the artillerymen
to the power of the crowd that was increasing every moment, rendering
it utterly impossible for them either to retreat or to advance. And the
result was, that at nine o’clock in the morning the pieces fell once
more into the hands of the National Guards.
Judging that the enterprise had no chance of succeeding by a return to
the offensive, Général Vinoy ordered a retreat, and retired to the
quarter of Les Ternes. This movement had been, moreover, determined by
the bad news arriving from other parts of Paris. The operations at
Belleville had succeeded no better than those at Montmartre. A
detachment of the 35th had, it is true, attacked and taken the Buttes
Chaumont, defended only by about twenty National Guards; but as soon as
the news of the capture had spread in the quarter, the drums beat to
arms, and in a short time the troops were found fraternising with the
National Guards of Belleville, who got possession again of the Buttes
Chaumont, and not only retook their own guns, but also those which the
artillery had brought up to support the manoeuvre of the infantry of
the line. At the same time, the 120th shamefully allowed themselves to
be disarmed by the people, and the insurgents became masters of the
barracks of the Prince Eugène.
At about four o’clock in the afternoon, two columns of National Guards,
each composed of three battalions, made their way towards the Hôtel de
Ville, where they were joined by a dozen other battalions from the left
bank of the river; at the same hour, the insurgent guards of Belleville
took and occupied the Imprimerie Nationale, the Napoleon Barracks, the
staff-quarters of the Place Vendôme, and the railway stations; the
arrest of Général Chanzy completed the work of the day, which had been
put to profitable account by the insurgents.—“_Guerre de Comunneux de
Paris._”