The Delegate at War then visited the defences. Solid preparations were being made at the Bastille. In the Rue St. Antoine, at the entrance of the place, a barricade provided with three pieces of artillery was being finished; another at the entrance of the faubourg covered the Rues de Charenton and De la Rouqette; but here, as everywhere else, the flanks were not guarded. Cartridges, shells, were piled up along the houses, exposed to all projectiles. The approaches to the eleventh arrondissement were hastily armed, and at the intersection of the Boulevards Voltaire and Richard-Lenoir a barricade was being thrown up with casks, pavements, and large bales of paper. This work, inaccessible from the front, was also to be turned. Before it, at the entrance of the Boulevards Voltaire, Place du Chateau d'Eau, a wall of pavement two yards high was raised. Behind this mortal rampart, assisted by two pieces of cannon, the Federals for twenty-four hours stopped all the Versaillese columns debouching on the Place du Chateau d'Eau. On the right, the bottom of the Rues Oberkampf, D'Angouleme, of the Faubourg du Temple, the Rue Fontaine-au-Roi, and the Avenue des Amandiers were already on the defensive. Higher up, in the tenth arrondissement, Brunel, arrived that same morning from the Rue Royale, was again to the fore, like Lisbonne, like Varlin, eager for new perils. A large barricade cut off the intersection of the Boulevards Magenta and Strasbourg; the Rue du Chateau d'Eau was barred, and the works of the Porte St. Martin and St. Denis, at which they had worked day and night, were filling with combatants. Towards ten o'clock the Versaillese had been able to gain possession of the Northern Railway station by turning the Rue Stephenson and the barricades of the Rue de Dunkerque; but the Strasbourg Railway, the second line of defence of La Villette, withstood their shock, and our artillery harassed them greatly. On the Buttes Chaumont, Ranvier, who directed the defence of these quarters, had established three howitzers of 12 cm., two pieces of 7 near the Temple de la Sybille, and two pieces of 7 on the lower hill, while five cannon enfiladed the Rue Puebla and protected the Rotonde. At the Carrieres d'Amerique there were two batteries of three pieces; the pieces of the Pere Lachaise fired incessantly at the invaded quarters, seconded by cannon of large calibre at the bastion 24. The ninth arrondissement filled with fusillades. We lost much ground in the Faubourg Poissonniere. Despite their success in the Halles, the Versaillese were not able to get into the third arrondissement, sheltered by the long arm of the Boulevard Sebastopol, and we commanded the Rue Turbigo by the Prince Eugene Barracks. The second arrondissement, almost totally occupied, still held out on the banks of the Seine; from the Pont-Neuf the barricades of the Avenue Victoria and Quai de Gevres resisted till night. Our gunboats having been abandoned, the enemy seized and re-armed them.