3-039-198 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The French Siege of Paris: Masonic Deputation to Versailles going out at the Porte Maillot, 1871. 'The attempt made by some members of certain Freemasons lodges in Paris to approach the French Provisional Government at Versailles with overtures for peace did not prove successful. It was on Sunday week, at one o'clock in the afternoon; that they reassembled and marched along the boulevards and up the Champs Elysées, as though to go out by way of Neuilly...Each Freemason wore a blue sash embroidered with their mystic signs. The procession reached the gate called the Porte Maillot, and hung out their banners on the outer wall. It appears that the General in command at Neuilly, General Leclerc, was a Mason himself; and therefore, when some of his "brothers" went out of the gates, waving a white flag, he suspended firing, and allowed the delegates to pass through his lines on their road to Versailles. This was one of the Masonic parties; another detachment went out by the Avenue Uhrich, and a third by the Porte des Ternes. Only three persons of their whole number were permitted to pass the besiegers' lines and to reach Versailles, where they had an interview with one of the Ministers'. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.