Communists had met with a decided defeat, and the following correspondence from the Versailles army verifies the view as seen from Paris:
"At none of the encounters between the Prussians and
the French around Paris did I see more severe fighting
than on Friday evening at the Courbevoie end of the
bridge of Neuilly. There was one barricade there and
another on the middle of the bridge; it had been resolved
to carry those barricades on Friday, with the view of
opening a way to Paris by the Avenue de Neuilly. The
division of General Montaudon was marched to Courbevoie
for the purpose, and that General directed the movements.
Generals Pechot and Besson were also on the
ground. I saw the action from the glacis of Valérien.
At 3 o'clock the enemy opened fire, Valérien throwing 14
and 28 pound shells from 7 and 14 pound guns against
Porte Maillot and the insurgents' batteries on the ramparts
close to that gate. At the same moment the fire
of eight 7-pounders and of four 12-pounders was directed
on the tête de pont at the right bank of the river from the
Courbevoie road and open space to the left, and the cannon
and mitrailleuses of Montaudon's division enfiladed
the avenue leading down to the enceinte.
"The insurgents vigorously replied with heavy guns from Porte Maillot and the ramparts, and with a mitrailleuse battery on the banks of the river close to the island. The troops possessed themselves of the houses at the angles of Puteaux and Courbevoie, and from these, at half-past three, commenced a chassepot fire on the insurgents. Dreadful was the thunder of artillery, the running scream of mitrailleuses, and the shrill whizzing of chassepots for a quarter of an hour; the whole of the region of Courbevoie and Neuilly was enveloped in a smoke so thick that one could see the fire blaze from the
