After the engagement of Chatillon, fought on September 19, various
reconnaissances were carried out by the army of Paris. In the first of
these General Vinoy secured possession of the plateau of Villejuif, east
of Chatillon, on the south side of the city. Next, the Germans had to
retire from Pierre-fitte, a village in advance of Saint Denis on the
northern side. There were subsequent reconnaissances in the direction of
Neuilly-sur-Marne and the Plateau d'Avron, east of Paris; and on
Michaelmas Day an engagement was fought at L'Hay and Chevilly, on the
south. But the archangel did not on this occasion favour the French, who
were repulsed, one of their commanders, the veteran brigadier Guilhem,
being killed. A fight at Chatillon on October 12 was followed on the
morrow by a more serious action at Bagneux, on the verge of the Chatillon
plateau. During this engagement the Mobiles from the Burgundian Cote d'Or
made a desperate attack on a German barricade bristling with guns,
reinforced by infantry, and also protected by a number of sharp-shooters
installed in the adjacent village-houses, whose window-shutters and walls
had been loop-holed. During the encounter, the commander of the Mobiles,
the Comte de Dampierre, a well-known member of the French Jockey Club,
fell mortally wounded whilst urging on his men, but was succoured by a
captain of the Mobiles of the Aube, who afterwards assumed the chief
command, and, by a rapid flanking movement, was able to carry the
barricade.
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