Page images
PDF
EPUB

LETTER XXX.

Monday night, July 3,

Ir was known early this morning that there had been partial actions yesterday at Nanterre, at Sèvres, and upon different points on the right bank of the Seine, between Neuilly and Argenteuil, that Versailles had been retaken, and the bridge of Choissy occupied by the Prussians.

The Prussians and English passed the night in intrenching themselves in the wood of Meudon and Versières, and advanced early this morning to the villages of Vauvres and Issy, as in preparation for a general attack of the come bined armies on the capital: at eight o'clock the two armies were in face of each other; the French in the plain of Grenelle, and the allies in the plain beneath Meudon. Firing had been heard and seen the whole night from the heights of Chaillot, which were crowded by people with telescopes. A portion of the cavalry of the guard, which was stationed in the Champ de

Mars, rode off at eleven o'clock along the left bank of the Seine, and were the last to take up their positions, which, at twelve o'clock, seemed concluded, and left the two armies in line of battle.

Some corps of infantry, amongst which were two battalions from the higher Marne, joined the army to day. The corps of Generals Lamarque and Travot are on their march to the capital. It was commonly reported early in the afternoon, that a general action was on the point of being fought. The throng and the silence, and the eager looks of the multitudes in the gardens and boulevards, the groups collected round, and trailing after two or three straggling dragoons, leading their wounded horses, or carrying orders to the head quarters of the square Vendôme-the dead, unsocial solemnity of the heavy patroles parading the streets without music-the doors of the houses and courts all shut, the upper windows opened every now and then, and occupied by female faces, as the clattering horse of a gend'arme announced the expectation of intelli gence every appearance of anxiety and apprehension, unusual even since the commencement of the siege, was to be recognized at the

first glance for an hour or two after it was known that the two armies were in presence. More than once crowds rushed towards the elevated spots of the gardens and squares at the exclamation of individuals, who announced the opening cannonade.

At four o'clock the battle had not begun. I called on your friend Madame

and

found her in tears. I was thunderstruck with the news.

Her son, the lieutenant general, had just left the army; all was lost-Paris had surrendered, with a devoted army of 80,000 soldiers before her walls. He was determined to denounce the treason and the traitors that night in the house of peers. Leaving the house, I soon heard the intelligence confirmed, both relating to the capitulation and the expected denunciation. Indeed, the artillery and some of the troops are now filing through Paris in their

retreat.

The commission of government sat at the Tuileries the whole of last night, and did not break up until seven in the morning; about which time, it now appears, that M. le Baron Bignon and the Count of Bondy, prefect of the Seine, repaired with a flag of truce to the head quarters of Lord Wellington at Vauvres, and

thence to St. Cloud, where the convention was signed.

There was but little done in the chamber of peers this day: the chamber adopted the resolution of the representatives relative to the pacification of La Vendée unanimously, but there were six peers bold enough, I may call it, to vote against allotting the library of Trianon to Napoleon. There was no denunciation of the capitulators. The chamber adjourned until tomorrow at two o'clock. The representatives met at twelve: a letter was read from General Vandamme, giving an account of his corps, and from the Baron Pamphile La Croix, remonstrating against the misrepresentation of the state of the corps of General Reille. A violent and interrupted discussion then took place. M. Felix Desportes began with saying, "that "sinister reports were in circulation-" but was stopped at once, by loud cries of order; as was also M. Sibuet, who endeavoured to declaim against the hereditary peerage. The president proposed, at half past two, the adjournment to the committee of constitution until five, when he re-entered the hall, and informed the members that, as the government had promised to make an interesting communication in the

course of the evening, he should propose a further adjournment until eight. The proposition, after a considerable confusion and opposition, was at last adopted. I hear the house is now sitting in a secret committee, the expected message from the Tuileries having arrived at ten o'clock,

« PreviousContinue »