court of the Tuileries there assembled
eight thousand men, the garrison of Paris,
under General Girard, and thirty thousand
National Guards under Hulin, the governor
of the city. They passed into the Rue de
Rivoli, followed by their train of artillery,
their bearded and aproned pioneers, their
waggons for baggage and ammunition.
Marmont's and Mortier's men were kept
outside the barrier at the defences, as the
citizens were not to observe their reduced
numbers and their dilapidated uniforms.

In the mean time, Marie Louise, never
very energetic or bold, took her husband's
advice, and left Paris, with her ill-fated
son, guarded by seven hundred men. The
civil authorities also scrambled off with the
crown jewels and public treasure, first
destroying the records of the Central Police
Bureau. On the morning of the 29th of
March, Joseph issued a proclamation among
the citizens of Paris " that he would
remain with them." True to his old
falsehoods, he described the enemy as a mere
straggling column from Meaux, and begged
the Parisians to sustain the honour of the
French name by a brief but valorous
resistance till the emperor, who was in full
march to their succour, should arrive. The
next morning between three and four
o'clock, by the cold dull light, the drums
beat to arms, and the National Guards
assembled, but arms were still deficient.
The men were kept within the barrier
till about eleven o'clock, and then marched
to the heights to form a second line, more
for appearance than use, behind the regular
troops. The picked men, who had seen
service, or were accustomed to the use of
arms, were drafted off as sharpshooters,
and several battalions were stationed to
strengthen weak spaces in the lines.

As to the strength of Paris, M. Thiers
has given the following testimony. "The
half circle of heights," he says, "from
Vincennes to Passy, encloses the most
populous and richest part of the city.
From the confluence of the Seine near
Charenton to Passy and Auteuil the heights
—sometimes en plateau, as at Romainville,
sometimes saillant, as at Montmartre—
afforded a most valuable means of resistance
even before a patriot king covered these
positions with impregnable fortifications."
To the south and south-east of the
semicircle, keeping on the right bank of the
Seine, are Vincennes, with its forest and
castle, the encampments of Charonne,
Menilmontant, and Montreuil. Adverse
forces on this side, unless they previously
seized the plateau of Romainville, would
be almost entirely, says M. Thiers, cut off
from communication with the army on the
north-east. If the plateau were disregarded,
then a defensive force could fall on the
flank of a careless enemy coming from
Vincennes, or on the flank of an invading
column crossing the plain of St. Denis
with the design of attacking the barriers
of La Villette, St. Denis, and Montmartre.
This latter column, coming from the northeast
across the plain of St. Denis, meets, of
necessity, the hillock of St. Chaumont and
the heights of Montmartre, Etoile, and
Passy; and should this column advance too
far in the direction of Etoile it would run
the risk of being brought to a stand in the
Bois de Boulogne, and thrown into the
Seine, thanks to the retrograde sweep the
river makes from St. Cloud to St. Denis.

But the leaders at Paris were inert.
They threw up no barricades. General
Hulin, wanting in energy, had hardly
horses enough to drag his two hundred
cannon from Vincennes. The carriages
were bad; the ammunition scanty. Of
the thirty thousand National Guards,
Moncey could only arm six thousand. The
redoubts before the gates were mere
"tambours" of palisades, without moats;
the soldiers were only twenty-four or
twenty-five thousand to oppose nearly two
hundred thousand. The fifty or sixty
thousand volunteers with fowling-pieces,
who could have been got together, were
never called upon. All was confusion,
excitement, and distrust. There was no real
belief in the possibility of a successful
resistance. The Parisians were only making
that sort of bragging clamour that precedes
the desertion of a camp. The minister
of war, who ought to have commanded,
confided to Marmont the south and east
of the heights, that is, the avenue of
Vincennes, the barriers of Trône and
Charonne, the plateau of Romainville, and a
portion northward behind this plateau as
far as Prés St. Gervais. Mortier took the
left—that is, the plain of St. Denis—the
space between the Canal of the Ourcq.

The allied sovereigns arrived on the
evening of the 29th at the château of
Bondy, and resolved to attack Paris by
the right bank of the Seine, so as not to
have to repass the river in case of repulse.
They planned three simultaneous attacks.
That on the east under Barclay de Tolly,
with fifty thousand men, was to carry by
Passy and Pantin the plateau of Romainville;
that on the south, under the Prince