Monstrous negligence, which alone would suffice to condemn the Council, the War Office, and the delegates of Montmartre. Eighty-five cannon and about twenty mitrailleuses were lying there, dirty, pell-mell, and no one during these eight weeks had even thought of cleaning them. Projectiles of 7 cm. abounded, but there were no cartridges. At the Moulin de la Galette three pieces of 24 cm. alone were supplied with carriages, but there were neither parapets, blindages, nor even platforms. At nine o'clock in the morning they had not yet fired; after the first discharge the recoil overthrew the carriages, and much time was required to set them up again. These three pieces themselves had very little munition. Of fortifications or earthworks there were none; merely a few barricades at the foot of the external boulevards had been begun. At nine o'clock La Cecilia sent to Montmartre, and found the defence in this disgraceful state. He immediately addressed despatches to the Hotel-de-Ville, conjuring the members of the Council to come themselves, or at least to send reinforcements of men and munitions. A similar thing occurred at the same time on the left bank at the Ecole Militaire. Face to face with its park of artillery, the Versaillese since one o'clock in the morning were manoeuvring on the Trocadero without a single cannon shot being fired at them. What, then, was the governor of the Ecole about? At daybreak the Langourian brigade attacked the huts of the Champ-de-Mars. The Federals defended themselves several hours, and were only dislodged by the shells of the Trocadero, which enkindled a conflagration.[181] They then fell back upon the Ecole, and for a long time checking the effort of the troops, gave the seventeenth arrondissement time to rise. The quay as far as the Legion d'Honneur, the Rues de Lille, De l'Universite, and the Boulevard St. Germain up to the Rue Solferino were being barricaded. Half-a-dozen of the armlet conspirators, led by Durouchoux and Vrignault, were coming down the Rue du Bac at great speed, when a member of the Council, Sicard, arrested them before the Petit St. Thomas. A bullet struck Durouchoux; his acolytes carried him away, and took advantage of the occasion not to appear again. The Rue de Beaune, Verneuil, and St. Peres were put in a state of defence, and a barricade was thrown up in the Rue de Sevres at the Abbaye-au-Bois. On the right Cissey's soldiers descended the Rue de Vaugirard without hindrance as far as the Avenue du Maine; another column filed off along the railway, and at half-past six reached the Mont-Parnasse station. This position, of supreme importance, had been utterly neglected; about twenty men defended it, and they were soon short of cartridges, and obliged to retreat to the Rue de Rennes, where, under the fire of the troops, they constructed a barricade at the top of the Rue du Vieux Colombier. On his extreme right Cissey occupied the Vanves gate and lined the whole railway of the west.