In the night of may 15th a band of about 300 armed men, pseudo-sailors
of the "Commune" and Belgian volunteers of both sex, rushed into the
Hotel. During five hours these mad men, several of them being
intoxicated, had to make in every part of the Hotel fantastic searches,
they went breaking the doors and menacing the administrator, the clerks
and servants.
They had no mandamus to do that, but the pretext was the arrestation of
a battalion of "Gendarmes" and the discovery of a subterranean vault
leading to Versailles.
The search for "Gendarmes" was not long to make, but the one for the
vault was stopped only when they had found the wine cellar. The door was
knocked out:
The great attention they paid to those investigations can be evaluated
by a consummation of 1764 francs of wine.
That operation began at 4 a.m. and was out at 6.
The whistles of those supposed sailors and the trumpets of the "Federes"
ordered the end of that small festival. The cellar was left a-side, and
the servants of the Hotel were obliged to bring up in the court-yard
those of the band who could not walk any more; at last, the troop went
out carrying away a good supply of provisions as wine, cigars, watches,
jewels and purses stolen in the servants' rooms, and also clocks and
about a hundred table-plates belonging to the Hotel.
They went with empty hands, but the pockets were full. Two of the
servants were obliged to go with them, and they said they would come
back the next day to arrest many others.
These wicked orgies having no political character, I will address myself
to the "Code penal" for a repression, and I deliver into the hands of
the "Procureur de la Republique" a complaint justified by the deposings
of all my servants, and indicating the names of the chiefs of that
curious performance.
Be good enough, Sir, to believe me yours most respectfully: V.....
_Administrator of the Grand Hotel_.
The Insurgents have evacuated all their positions between Fort Vanves
and the _enceinte_.
The only gunboats now beneath the Viaduct at the Point du Jour are mere
wrecks, and their guns have completely disappeared.
The Insurgents' battery on a bastion between Vaugirard and Montrouge has
been firing frequently to-day. One of its shells came as far as Bas
Meudon.
Fort Issy has been directing its fire upon the Point du Jour. About noon
there were two conflagrations at the Point du Jour and one at Auteuil.
The soldiers working at the parallels and the breaching batteries are
suffering from the musketry of Insurgents behind the _enceinte_. As many
as 30 of them have been killed during one night, but the sap has been
carried to within less than 400 metres of the ramparts.
The Insurgents are raising additional barricades in the Rue de
Vaugirard, and also at Passy and Auteuil. Pontoon bridges and fascines
in great numbers are being sent forward to the military foreposts.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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