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Moreover, General Dombrowski had made known that evening that he wished to have a Polish dinner. Though the hour was late, the Seneschal had gathered cooks from the neighbourhood with all possible speed; there were five of them working under his direction. As head cook he had girt him with a white apron, donned a nightcap, and tucked up his sleeves to the elbows.
The Prince Sapieha, Kosciusko, and Sobieski, with the sage Dombrowski, were the first who took this oath of fidelity to Poland; and they administered it to Thaddeus, who, kneeling down, inwardly invoked Heaven to aid him, as he swore to fulfil his trust.
Meanwhile Marshal Oudinot, who was already marching towards Minsk, totally ignorant of what had happened, halted on the 21st. In the middle of the night General Brownkowski arrived to announce to him his own defeat, as well as that of General Dombrowski; that Borizoff was taken, and that the Russians were following close at his heels.
The Polish general Bronikowski being unable with 3000 men to defend the place, had joined Dombrowski, who was covering the Dnieper, and both guarded the bridge of Borisow on the Berezina with insufficient forces.
A great explosion, followed by a conflagration, occurred at half-past 12 at the Staff Quarters near the Esplanade of the Invalides. Paris is now completely surrounded. It is asserted that Dombrowski is hemmed in at Ouen.
Dombrowski, the only general of ability, was killed early in the struggle. Barricades were in almost every street. Prisoners on both sides were shot without mercy. The Communists set fire to the Tuileries, the Hôtel-de-Ville, the Ministry of Finance, the Palace of the Legion of Honor. The rest of the story is all blood and horror.
Five were genuine working-men, three of whom were fierce, ignorant cobblers from Belleville; the other two were Assy, a machinist, and Thiez, a silver-chaser, one of the few honest men in the Council. Three were not Frenchmen, although generals; namely, Dombrowski, La Cecilia, and Dacosta, besides Cluseret, who claimed American citizenship.
"Beneath me lay stretched out like a map the once great and beautiful city, now, alas! given over a prey to fire and sword. I could see smoke rising from many a heap of ruins that but a few short hours before had been a palace or a monument of art. It was impossible, however, to decide what buildings were actually burning, for a thick, misty rain had set in, which prevented my seeing distinctly. In my descent I passed the place where the body of Dombrowski was lying. He had been shot from behind, and the ball had passed through his body. At the gate of the cemetery I found a man waiting for me with news that Belleville was to be our rendezvous. Words cannot paint the spectacle that Belleville presented. It was the last place left, the only refuge remaining; and such an assemblage as was collected there it would be difficult to find again. There were National Guards of every battalion, Chasseurs Fédérés in their wonderful uniform, a sort of cross between Zouave, linesman, and rifleman, Enfants Perdus in their green coats and feathers (very few of these were to be seen, as they had no claim to quarter, nor did they expect any), Chasseurs
Men and women once more held up their heads and snapped their fingers at Delescluze, Dombrowski, and the Commune, but there was sad evidence all around us of what this rebellion had done. There in the little cemetery behind the ramparts lay the unburied and mangled remains of 32 National Guards who had been killed at the batteries just above. The whole place was a picture of ruin and desolation.
By eight o'clock at night Oudinôt and Dombrowski had taken possession of the heights commanding the passage, while General Eblé descended from them. That general placed himself on the borders of the river, with his pontonniers and a waggon-load of the irons of abandoned wheels, which at all hazards he had made into cramp-irons.
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