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Updated: June 12, 2025
While still in camp, the news of the fall of Sedan was received and the tireurs were hurried forward to the vicinity of Paris on which the Prussians were rapidly advancing. Their first engagement was at Creteil. They did skirmishing for the army of General Vinoy, who had about fifteen thousand men. This was on the 11th of Dec., 1870.
That is from a battery up at Creteil, and now the Prussian guns on Montmesly, and all the way round Ville Juif, are answering. The affair is becoming hot. Listen, the Chassepots are at work." Indeed, between the sounds of the cannon a continuous murmur could be heard. It sounded like a railway train passing over a distant viaduct. "Is there any place where we can see better from?"
We go around Marne, and, returning, dine at Créteil. How cool the evening in the dusky arbor, where pipes glow through the darkness, and moths singe their wings in the flame of the omelette au kirsch.
Further, on quitting Creteil, instead of taking a direct route to the city of Louis Quatorze, we made, as the reader will presently see, an immense detour, so that our journey to Versailles lasted three full days. This occurred because the Germans wished to prevent us from seeing anything of the nearer lines of investment and the preparations which had already begun for the bombardment of Paris.
The road was at times barricaded with trees, or intersected by trenches, and it was not without difficulty that we surmounted those impediments. At Petit Creteil we were astonished to see a number of market-gardeners working as unconcernedly as in times of peace.
The hired vehicles were now sent back to Paris, and after a brief interval we went on again, passing through an aperture in a formidable-looking barricade. We then readied Creteil proper, and there the first serious traces of the havoc of war were offered to our view. The once pleasant village was lifeless. Every house had been broken into and plundered, every door and every window smashed.
That evening, moreover, he attempted to ford the Seine at Juvisy. On the 16th some of his forces appeared between Creteil and Neuilly-sur-Marne, on the eastern side of the city, and only some five miles from the fort of Vincennes.
It was two hours before he returned, and the news he brought was dispiriting. "I have been up to Creteil," he said, "and have learnt from the people there who saw the whole affair what has happened. The advance was good. We swept the Germans at first before us, and for a time our fellows made a stand on the crest of Montmesly. But the enemy were reinforced and drove us down the hill again.
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