ncorde at the time
when they ought to have been harnessed to the guns at Montmartre. Before
they arrived, agitation had broken out and spread all over the quarter.
The turbulent population, complaining in indignant tones of circulation
being stopped, insulted the sentinels placed at the entrances of the
streets, and threatened the artillerymen who were watching them. At the
same time, the Central Committee caused the rappel to be beaten, and
towards seven o'clock in the morning ten or twelve thousand National
Guards from the arrondissements of Batignolles, Montmartre, La Villette,
and Belleville poured into the streets. Crowds of lookers-on surrounded
the soldiers who were mounting guard by the recaptured pieces, the women
and children asking them pleadingly if they would have the heart to fire
upon their brothers.

Meanwhile, about a dozen tumbrils, with their horses, had arrived on the
heights of the Buttes, the guns were dragged off, and were quietly
proceeding down hill, when, at the corner of the Rue Lepic and the Rue
des Abbesses, they were stopped by a concourse of several hundred people
of the quarter, principally women and children. The foot soldiers, who
were escorting the guns, forgetting their duty, allowed themselves to be
dispersed by the crowd, and giving way to perfidious persuasion, ended
by throwing up the butt ends of their guns. These soldiers belonged to
the 88th Battalion of the Lecomte brigade. The immediate effect of their
disaffection was to abandon the artillerymen to the power of the crowd
that was increasing every moment, rendering it utterly impossible for
them either to retreat or to advance. And the result was, that at nine
o'clock in the morning the pieces fell once more into the hands of the
National Guards.

Judging that the enterprise had no chance of succeeding by a return to
the offensive, General Vinoy ordered a retreat, and retired to the
quarter of Les Ternes. This movement had been, moreover, determined by
the bad news arriving from other parts of Paris. The operations at
Belleville had succeeded no better than those at Montmartre. A
detachment of the 35th had, it is true, attacked and taken the Buttes
Chaumont, defended only by about twenty National Guards; but as soon as
the news of the capture had spread in the quarter, the drums beat to
arms, and in a short time the troops were found fraternising with the
National Guards of Belleville, who got possession again of the Buttes