TAKING THE HILLTOP* THAT OVERLOOKED THE LEFT BANK WHEN HOUSES WERE LOW OR NONEXISTANT, WAS THE ARMY'S TOUGHTEST FIGHT
*The Butte-aux-Cailles ("Quail hilltop")
Sparing unreliable troops at other times shows the hill's importance: Versaillais forces were six times more numerous,
but it took five attempts to take the hill.
-- Lissagary
The Observatory seen from the Butte aux Cailles by Jean Millet, toward 1710 / zoom
"A perspective to delight the most blasé traveller [...]
The Panthéon's magnificent cupula, the drab and melancholy Val de Grâce, proudly look over an entire town [...] from there, the proportions of the the two monuments appear gigantic [...] to the left, the Observatory seems a dark and gaunt spectre [...] then, from afar, the Invalides's elegant lantern flames between the Luxembourg's blue masses and the gray towers of Saint-Sulpice [...]"
-- The Woman of Thirty by Balzac, 1842
To avoid the barricades at the Gobelins manufactory the army advanced over islands on the Bièvre River, although that route obliged climbing the steep hill:
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Zoom (please scroll down) |
There it began its climb...
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| Parc René Le Gall |
The park is built on enlarged islands.
...taking this path...
...crossing a track...
Boulevard Auguste Blanqui
...that linked the porte d'Italie gate with place d'Italie, site of City Hall and of the prison where the monks would soon be killed.
...and heading up the hill, which they took toward 4 p.m.
The thousand surviving Communards retired to the right bank in good order, where they dispersed to defend their neighborhoods.
# # #
That summit is five minutes
from place de la Commune...
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| The Brassai garden |
...from which the terrified residents
heard the screams and gun shots
from the fighting.
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