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Updated: May 8, 2025
The cannonade recommenced at daybreak. 11.30 A.M. The cannonade increases. Flourens wrote to me yesterday and Rochefort to-day. They are coming round to me again. Dorian, Minister of Public Works, and Pelletan came to dine with me. Excellent news to-night! The Army of the Loire is at Montargis. The Army of Paris has driven back the Prussians from the Avron plateau.
General Ducrot, who was there, and between whom and Trochu a certain coldness has sprung up, declared that he had always been opposed to any attempt to retain this position. The behaviour of Vinoy was that of a soldier. He was everywhere encouraging his men. What I cannot understand is why, if Avron was to be held, it was not fortified.
The plateau of Avron had to be evacuated. December 31. D'Alton-Shee paid a visit to me this morning. It appears that General Ducros wants to see me. Within three days the Prussians have sent us 12,000 shells. Yesterday I ate some rat, and then hiccoughed the following quatrain: O mesdames les hetaires Dans vos greniers, je me nourris: Moi qui mourais de vos sourires, Je vais vivre de vos souris.
During that night, close under the guns of the double redoubt of Gravelle and La Faisanderie, eight pontoon-bridges were thrown over the Marne; and at daybreak the first column of the third army under Blanchard and Renoult crossed with all their artillery, and, covered by the fire of the double redoubts, of the forts of Vincennes, Nogent, Rossuey, and the batteries of Mont Avron, had an hour before noon carried the village of Champingy, and the first echelon of the important plateau of Villiers, and were already commencing the work of intrenchment, when, rallying from the amaze of a defeat, the German forces burst upon them, sustained by fresh batteries.
I had made pretty little chapels in front of the Virgin Mary, and the young priest from St. Sulpice came to take part in our poor but poetical Christmas service. He repeated some beautiful prayers, and the wounded men, many of whom were from Brittany, sang some sad solemn songs full of charm. Porel, the present manager of the Vaudeville Theatre, had been wounded on the Avron Plateau.
The plateau of Avron was literally inundated with shells, many of them of far larger size than had previously been fired. The range of the guns was too great, and it was evident that the Prussians had rectified their aim. Their projectiles no longer fell wide in the field; they almost all burst close to the trenches.
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