On the basis of the agreement of January 28th a line of demarcation was drawn, from which both parties were to withdraw their outposts to a distance of 10 km. The line ran south from the mouth of the Seine as far as the Sarthe, crossed the Loire at Saumur, followed the Creuse, turned eastward past Vierzon, Clamecy and Chagny, and then met the Swiss frontier, after bending to the north of Chalons sur Saone and south of Lons le Saulnier and St. Laurent. The two departments of Pas de Calais and du Nord, as well as the promontory of Havre, were particularly excluded. The fortresses still held by French troops in the districts occupied by the Germans were assigned a rayon in proportion to their importance. In carrying out the details of the agreement a liberal interpretation was in most instances allowed. The arrangements had the sanction of those members of the Government of National Defence who were in Paris; while the delegates at Bordeaux, who had hitherto conducted the war, at first held aloof, and indeed, as yet had not been made acquainted with the detailed conditions. Gambetta, it is true, allowed the suspension of operations, but could not give the commanders more precise instructions. General Faidherbe was thus without orders with regard to the evacuation of Dieppe and Abbeville. General von Goeben, however, refrained from taking immediate possession of these places. On the west of the Seine, the Grand Duke was forced to proclaim that the non-recognition of the line of demarcation would be followed by an immediate recommencement of hostilities. The commandant of the garrison at Langres also raised difficulties, and only withdrew within his rayon on February 7th, as did General Rolland later at Besancon. Auxonne was at first unwilling to give up control of the railway. Bitsch, which had not been worth the trouble of a serious attack, repudiated the convention; the investment had therefore to be strengthened, and only in March, when threatened with a determined attack, did the garrison abandon its peak of rock. Nor did the volunteers acquiesce at once, and there were collisions with them at various points. But after the conditions were finally settled, no more serious quarrels occurred between the inhabitants and the German troops during the whole course of the armistice. All the German corps before Paris occupied the forts lying in their front, more specifically the Vth took over Mont Valerien, and the IVth the town of St. Denis. Between the forts and the enceinte there lay a neutral zone, which civilians were allowed to cross only by specified roads placed under control of German examining troops.