Within the line of the fortifications the insurgents had formed a second line of defence, which runs on the right bank of the river, by the Trocadero, the Triumphal Arch, the Boulevard de Courcelles, the Boulevard de Batignolles, and the Boulevard de Rochechouart; and on the left across the bridge of Iena, the Avenue de la Bourdonnaye, the Ecole Militaire, the Boulevard des Invalides, the Boulevard Montparnasse, and the Western Railway Station.  Along the whole extent of this circuit the entrances of the streets were barricades, and the “Places” turned into redoubts.

From this double enceinte of fortifications the lines of defence converged along the great boulevards, the Rue Royale, by the Ministry of Marine, the terrace of the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the Palace of the Corps Legislatif, the Rue de Bourgogne, and the Rue de Varenne.  This third enceinte of defence was the pride of the insurgents; they were never tired of admiring their celebrated barricade of the Rue St. Florentin, and that which intercepted the quay at the corner of the Tuileries Gardens on the Place de la Concorde.

This is not all.  Supposing that the third line were forced, the insurgents would not even then be without resource.  On the left bank of the Seine they fell back successively on the Rue de Grenelle, Rue Saint Dominique, and Rue de Lille, all three closed by barricades; on the right bank they could carry on the struggle by the Rue Neuve-des-Petits-Champs, the Rue de la Paix, and the Place Vendome, and even when beaten back from these last retreats, they could still defend the Rue St. Honore and operate a retreat by the Palace of the Tuileries, the Louvre, and the Hotel de Ville.]

[Footnote 101:  In the following proclamation, published on the 21st May, Delescluze stimulated the Communist party, which felt its power melting away on all sides: 

“TO THE PEOPLE OF PARIS, TO THE NATIONAL GUARD.

“CITIZENS,—­We have had enough of militaryism; let us have no more stuffs embroidered and gilt at every seam!

“Make room for the people, the real combatants, the bare arms!  The hour of the revolutionary war has struck!

“The people know nothing of scientific manoeuvres, but with a rifle in hand and the pavement beneath their feet, they fear not all the strategists of the monarchical school.

“To arms, citizens!  To arms!  You must conquer, or, as you well know, fall again into the pitiless hands of the reactionaires and clericals of Versailles; those wretches who with intention delivered France up to Prussia, and now make us pay the ransom of their treason!

“If you desire the generous blood which you have shed like water during the last six weeks not to have been shed in vain, if you would see liberty and equality established in France, if you would spare your children sufferings and misery such as you have endured, you will rise as one man, and before your formidable bands the enemy who indulges the idea of bringing you again under his yoke, will reap nothing but the harvest of the useless crimes with which he has disgraced himself during the past two months.