_September 30th._--Early on this day a cannonade of an hour and a half's duration from the southern forts and batteries announced a sortie in that direction. By six o'clock two brigades of the XIIIth French Corps deployed against Thiais and Choisy le Roi. Strong swarms of tirailleurs drove in the outposts of the VIth Corps, and forced the field-guns in position between those two villages to retire; but then the fire of the infantry garrisons checked any further attack on the part of the French. Further to the west a third brigade got into Chevilly and seized a factory on the road to Belle Epine; but its determined attack failed to obtain possession of the whole village. The 11th Division was alarmed in its rearward quarters, and hurried forward to the support of the 12th. The factory was recovered from the French, and the Prussian batteries now opened fire, and worked such havoc among the enemy as he retired on Saussaye, that, shunning the attack of the infantry, he fled in great disorder to Hautes Bruyères and Villejuif. A brigade which had forced its way into L'Hay was in the same way driven back, leaving 120 prisoners for the most part unwounded. In the farmstead at the north entrance of Chevilly, however, the French still held their ground with great obstinacy. Not till they were completely surrounded, and had made an ineffectual attempt to force a passage, did surrender those brave defenders, who numbered about 100.
The whole series of attacks was entirely defeated by about nine o'clock, and General Vinoy vainly endeavoured to incite the diminished battalions at Hautes Bruyères to renew the struggle.
These few morning hours had cost the VIth Corps 28 officers and 413 men; and the French many more.
Two simultaneous feint-attacks on Sèvres and on Mesly on the right bank of the Seine, came to nothing. The German outposts, at first driven in, re-occupied their ground by about nine o'clock.
After thus failing to gain space towards the southward by this sortie, the besieged proceeded to assure themselves of the ground already in their possession by the construction of entrenchments. They fortified Villejuif and extended their lines from Hautes Bruyères past Arcueil to the Mill of Pichon, so that there the Bavarian outposts had to be drawn in nearer to Bourg-la-Reine.