The forts, which opposed the attack with 143 heavy guns, replied vigorously, and on the following day the thick weather prevented the German batteries from resuming their fire till the afternoon. But the ground in front was abandoned by the French, and the outposts of the Guards and IVth Corps took possession of Villetaneuse and Temps Perdu. During the nights the fire was directed on St. Denis, with every endeavour to spare the Cathedral, and many conflagrations occurred. By the 23rd the vigorous prosecution of the cannonade had materially subdued the fire of the defence. La Briche was wholly silenced, and the other forts only fired occasional salvos. During the night of the 25th four batteries were advanced to within 1300 and 950 yards respectively of the enemy's main works. The engineer attack also could now be undertaken, and a series of new batteries was constructed, which, however, were never used. The effect of this bombardment of only six days' duration was decisive. The forts had suffered extraordinarily. In contrast to those of the south front they were destitute of the powerful backing of the enceinte, and they lacked, too, bomb-proof shelter. The provisional bomb-proofs were pierced by shells, the powder-magazines were in the greatest danger, and the garrisons had nowhere any more cover. The inhabitants of St. Denis fled to Paris in crowds, and the impaired immunity from storm of the sorely battered works was an insuperable obstacle to a longer maintenance of the defence. This northern attack cost the Germans one officer and 25 men; the French stated their loss at 180. The fire of the forts on the east front was kept under, and the Wuertemberg Field Artillery sufficed to prevent the enemy from renewing his foothold on the peninsula of St. Maur. The south front meanwhile suffered more and more from the steady bombardment. The enceinte and the sunken mortar batteries behind the ceinture railway were still active, but in the forts the barracks were reduced to ruins, partly battered in and partly burnt down, and the garrisons had to take shelter in the emptied powder-magazines. The covered ways could no longer be traversed safely, the parapets afforded no protection. In Vanves the embrasures were filled up with sandbags; in the southern curtain of Issy five blocks of casemates had been pierced by shells penetrating the shielding walls. Even the detached gorge-walls of Vanves and Montrouge were destroyed, forty guns were dismounted, and seventy gun carriages wrecked. The whole condition of France, political and military, and above all the situation in Paris, was such as to cause the Government the gravest anxiety.