United States or Slovenia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
As a natural result the consternation was proportionately great when, at nightfall, the inevitable defeat became known. While the left wing was seizing Montretout the center, which had succeeded in carrying the outer wall of Buzanval Park, had encountered a second inner wall, before which it broke.
Pabbley. As momma said, human nature is perfectly extraordinary. For the rest of the journey to Versailles there was hardly any international conversation. Mr. Hinkson tied his handkerchief round his neck, and the Canadians tried to look as if they had no objection. We passed through the villages of Montretout and Buze.
They broke and fell back. Their companions who were in advance, and who held the crest of the heights, saw themselves deserted, and at the same time saw the attacking column coming forward, and they too fell back. The centre of the position was thus lost. A hurried consultation was held, and Montretout and Buzenval were evacuated.
Every evening, from five to seven, they fought a decisive battle upon each marble table, sustained by the artillery of the iced decanter which represented Mount Valerien, a glass of bitters, that is to say, Vinoy's brigade, feigned to attack a saucer representing the Montretout batteries; while the regular army and National Guard, symbolized by a glass of vermouth and absinthe, were coming in solid masses from the south, and marching straight into the heart of the enemy, the match-box.
Such was the remark I heard made yesterday by a poor and very old peasant woman as she stopped work for a moment in a field above Montretout to look at the Fort firing. She followed up this admirable summary of recent military operations by asking me whether it was not amazing that somebody could not "invent" a means to put a stop to this Civil War.
It was supposed that its effects, great as they had been on the forts most exposed to it, had not come up to the expectations of the besiegers, and the telescope showed that the troops were hard at work erecting a great battery on Montretout, an eminence near St. Cloud.
The shells thrown from the floating battery bridge at the Point du Jour and from the land batteries near that point generally drop short of the mark and fall either into the Seine or on the slopes of the railway by the right bank. This afternoon I saw many projectiles from Montretout and Meudon explode among the houses at the Point du Jour and the enceinte near it.
In consequence of the bombardment daily expected from the Montretout batteries people have been hurriedly leaving Paris in great numbers. Fort Vanves took fire last night, and had to be evacuated. It was found impossible to extinguish the fire. It is still burning. The explosion at Issy arose from a torpedo, not a powder magazine. The Fort is evacuated.
Fort d'Issy and the great battery at Montretout, seconded by Mont Valerien, for the last ten days had been battering the rampart at the Point-du-Jour, as a consequence of which the Saint-Cloud gate was no longer tenable and an assault had been ordered for the following morning, the 22d; but someone who chanced to pass that way at about five o'clock perceived that the gate was unprotected and immediately notified the guards in the trenches, who were not more than fifty yards away.
Yesterday, the gates of the Bois de Boulogne were opened, and a crowd of several thousand persons walked and drove round the lake. Over their heads one of the bastions was throwing shells into Montretout, but it seemed to occur to no one that Montretout might return the compliment, and throw a few shells, not over their heads, but into their midst.
Word Of The Day