the Prussian 3rd Army led by Crown Prince Frederik of Prussia (the future Emperor Frederick III), had been marching towards Paris. A French force accompanied by Napoleon III was deployed to aid the army encircled by Prussians at the Siege of Metz. This force were crushed at the Battle of Sedan, and the road to Paris was left open. Personally leading the Prussian forces, King William I of Prussia, along with his chief of staff Helmuth von Moltke, took the 3rd Army and the new Prussian Army of the Meuse under Crown Prince Albert of Saxony, and marched on Paris virtually unopposed. In Paris, the Governor and commander-in-chief of the city's defenses, General Louis Jules Trochu, assembled a force of 60,000 regular soldiers who had managed to escape from Sedan under Joseph Vinoy or who were gathered from depot troops. Together with 90,000 Mobiles (Territorials), a brigade of 13,000 naval seamen and 350,000 National Guards, the potential defenders of Paris totaled around 513,000. The compulsorily enrolled National Guards were, however, untrained. They had 2,150 cannon plus 350 in reserve, and 8,000,000 kg of gunpowder. The French had expected the war to be fought mainly on German soil; it was not until the defeats at Spicheren and Frœschwiller that the authorities began to take serious action in organizing the defenses of Paris. A committee under the leadership of Marshall Vaillant was formed and given a budget of 12 million francs to strengthen the defenses. Barriers were put up around the city, 12,000 workers employed to dig earthworks, a barrage placed across the Seine, and select approaches to the city laid with electrically-triggered mines. Forests and houses were cleared to improve the firing sight lines, roads were torn up, and railroad and road entrances to the city blocked. The Paris Catacombs were sealed off, along with certain quarries and excavations outside the city to deny an entry-point to the Prussians. The authorities in Paris also attended to provisions and took steps to stockpile cereals, salted meat, and preserves for the population. Much of this was stored in the Opéra Garnier. The Bois de Boulogne and Luxembourg Gardens were packed with livestock - the former received some 250,000 sheep and 40,000 oxen. The government believed it had enough flour and wheat to last for 80 days, more than enough based on the assumption, then prevalent, that the siege would be relatively brief. Siege