force of 520 French soldiers under his personal command. During his absence at Nam Dinh the Black Flags and Vietnamese made an attack on Hanoi, but they were repulsed by chef de bataillon Berthe de Villers in the Battle of Gia Cuc on 28 March. Rivière was jubilant: 'This will force them to take forward their Tonkin Question!' Rivière's timing was perfect. He had expected to be cashiered for his Capture of Nam Dinh, but instead he found himself the hero of the hour. There had recently been a change of government in France, and the new administration of Jules Ferry was strongly in favour of colonial expansion. It therefore decided to back Rivière up. Ferry and his foreign minister Paul-Armand Challemel-Lacour denounced Bourée's agreement with Li Hongzhang and recalled the hapless French minister. They also made it clear to the Chinese that they were determined to place Tonkin under French protection. In April 1883, realising that the Vietnamese were incapable of resisting the French effectively, the Chinese civil mandarin Tang Jingsong (Tang Jingsong, 唐景崧) persuaded Liu Yongfu to take the field against Rivière with the Black Flag Army. Defeat and death On 10 May 1883 Liu Yongfu challenged the French to battle in a taunting message on placards that were widely distributed on the walls of Hanoi. On 19 May Rivière marched out of Hanoi to attack the Black Flags. His small force (around 450 men) advanced without proper precautions, and blundered into a well-prepared Black Flag ambush at Paper Bridge (Pont de Papier), a few miles to the west of Hanoi. In the Battle of Paper Bridge the French were enveloped on both wings, and were only with difficulty able to regroup and fall back to Hanoi. Towards the end of the battle a French cannon overturned with the shock of its recoil, and Rivière and his officers rushed forward to help the gunners to right it. The Black Flags fired a volley into this struggling mass of men, killing one French officer and seriously wounding Rivière in the shoulder. Several seconds later, Rivière collapsed. Seeing the French line in confusion, the Black Flags surged forward and drove back the French rearguard. Several French officers were wounded at this critical moment, and in the confusion of the retreat Rivière's body was abandoned on the battlefield. He was immediately presumed dead by his fellow officers. If he had not