[183] "At the Place Blanche," wrote G. Maroteau in the _Salut Public_ of the next day, "there was a barricade perfectly constructed and defended by a battalion of women, about 120. At the moment when I arrived, a dark form detached itself from the recess of a courtyard. It was a young girl with a Phrygian cap on her head, a chassepot in her hand, a cartridge-box by her side. 'Stand, citizen! no one passes here!' I stopped astonished, showed my safe-conduct, and the citoyenne allowed me to go to the foot of the barricade." [184] Appendix XV. CHAPTER XXVIII. TUESDAY 23RD--MONTMARTRE IS TAKEN--THE WHOLESALE MASSACRES --WE LOSE GROUND--PARIS ON FIRE--THE LAST NIGHT OF THE HOTEL-DE-VILLE. The defenders of the barricades slept on their paving-stones. The hostile outposts were on the watch. At the Batignolles the Versaillese reconnaissance carried off a sentinel. The Federal cried out with all his might, "Vive la Commune!" and his comrades, thus warned, were able to put themselves on their guard. He was shot there and then. In like manner fell D'Assas and Barra. At two o'clock La Cecilia, accompanied by the members of the Council, Lefrancais, Vermorel, and Johannard, and the journalists Alphonse Humbert and G. Maroteau, brought up a reinforcement of 100 men to the Batignolles. To Malon's reproaches for having left the quarter without succour the whole day, the General answered, "I am not obeyed." _Three o'clock._--To the barricades! The Commune is not dead! The fresh morning air bathes the fatigued faces and revives hope. The enemy's cannonade along the whole line salutes the break of day. The artillerists of the Commune, from Mont-Parnasse to the Buttes Montmartre, which seem awaking, answered as well as they could. Ladmirault, almost motionless the day before, now launched his men along the fortifications, taking all the gates from Neuilly to St. Ouen in the rear. On his right, Clinchant attacked by the same movement all the barricades of the Batignolles. The Rue Cardinet yielded first, then the Rues Noblet, Truffaut, La Condamine, and the lower Avenue of Clichy. Suddenly the gate of St. Ouen opened, and the Versaillese poured into Paris; it was the Montaudon division, which since evening had been operating in the exterior. The Prussians had surrendered the neutral zone, and so, with the help of Bismarck, Clinchant and Ladmirault were able to take the Buttes by the two flanks. Nearly surrounded in the mairie of the seventeenth arrondissement, Malon ordered the retreat on Montmartre, whither a detachment of twenty-five women, come to offer their services under the conduct of the citoyennes Dimitrieff and Louise Michel, were also sent.