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Updated: June 15, 2025
Uncle Prudent and his companion beheld the superb city clustered along both banks of the river; its wooden bridges stretching across like threads, its villas and their balconies standing out in bold outline, its hills shaded by tall poplars, its roofs grassed over and looking like molehills; its numerous canals, with boats like nut-shells, and boatmen like ants; its palaces, temples, kiosks, mosques, and bungalows on the outskirts; and its old citadel of Hari-Pawata on the slope of the hill like the most important of the forts of Paris on the slope of Mont Valerien.
On my return into Paris, however, I found the following proclamation of the Government posted on the walls: "2 p.m. The attack commenced this morning by a great deployment from Mont Valérien to Nogent, the combat has commenced and continues everywhere, with favourable chances for us. Schmitz." The people on the Boulevards seem to imagine that a great victory has been gained.
It was nearly seven A. M., December 3, before these prison-vans were ready to start. Some went to the great prison of Mazas, some to Vincennes, some to Fort Valérien. At Mazas they were treated in all respects like criminals, except that they were not allowed a daily walk, a privilege the knaves and malefactors obtained. Two deputies only were favored with beds, M. Thiers and another elderly man.
This café-boat being only covered with a roof and having no wall whatever, to shut it in, the hare-brained dance was displayed in the face of the peaceful night and of the firmament powdered with stars. Suddenly, Mount Valerien, yonder opposite, appears illumined, as if a conflagration had been set ablaze behind it.
Cloud by the bombs of Mont Valérien is very inconsiderable. A portion of the Palace and a few houses were in ruins, but that was all. There is a large barrack there, which the soldiers assured me is lit up every night, and why this building has not been shelled, neither they nor I could understand.
In a quarter of an hour he ascended to the roof. The resident on the ground-floor had an astronomical telescope with which he was in the habit of reconnoitring the skies from the garden. This he had taken up to the roof, where some twenty persons were gathered. A magnificent view was obtained here of the circle of hills from Valerien round by Meudon, and the whole of the left bank of the river.
Bergeret, Duval, and Eudes lead huge masses of bloodthirsty children of the red flag, into a battle where quickening war appalls the timid Louise. It makes her cling close to Armand. The human family seems changed into a pack of ravening wolves. Pouring back, defeated and dismayed, the Communists rage in the streets. The grim fortress of Mont Valerien has scourged the horde of Bergeret.
A pleasant light lay on the charming houses that front the skirts of the forest, on the blue-gray windings of the Seine, on the groves of leafless poplars interwoven with its course, on the plain with its thickly sown villages, on the height of Mont Valerien, behind which lay Paris. In spite of the sunshine, however, it was winter, and there was no movement in St. Germains.
So, when anyone ventures to question the veracity of Trochu, one is told that he has adopted his brother's children. According to measurements which have been made, the Prussian batteries at Sèvres and Meudon will carry to the Champ de Mars. From Montretout their guns would throw shells into the Champs Elysées; but we think that Valérien will silence them as soon as they open.
When, after the first attack of the Communist forces on those of the Versailles Government, the guns of Fort Valérien opened on Paris, the second bombardment began. It was far more destructive than that of the Prussians, the guns from the forts being so much nearer to the centre of the city.
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