There was heard the regular footfall of thousands of men walking together to defend the frontiers over the resounding soil of their country, the plaintive notes of women, the wailing of children, the neighing of horses, the hissing of flames as they devoured palaces and huts; then gloomy strokes of vengeance, striking again and again with the hatchet, and immolating the enemies of the people, and the profaners of the soil.  The notes of this air rustled like a flag dipped in gore, still reeking in the battle plain.  It made one tremble—­but it was the shudder of intrepidity which passed over the heart, and gave an impulse—­redoubled strength—­veiled death.  It was the “fire-water” of the Revolution, which instilled into the senses and the soul of the people the intoxication of battle.  There are times when all people find thus gushing into their national mind accents which no man hath written down, and which all the world feels.  All the senses desire to present their tribute to patriotism, and eventually to encourage each other.  The foot advances—­gesture animates—­the voice intoxicates the ear—­the ear shakes the heart.  The whole heart is inspired like an instrument of enthusiasm.  Art becomes divine; dancing, heroic; music, martial; poetry, popular.  The hymn which was at that moment in all mouths will never perish.  It is not profaned on common occasions.  Like those sacred banners suspended from the roofs of holy edifices, and which are only allowed to leave them on certain days, we keep the national song as an extreme arm for the great necessities of the country.  Ours was illustrated by circumstances, whence issued a peculiar character, which made it at the same time more solemn and more sinister:  glory and crime, victory and death, seemed intertwined in its chorus.  It was the song of patriotism, but it was also the imprecation of rage.  It conducted our soldiers to the frontier, but it also accompanied our victims to the scaffold.  The same blade defends the heart of the country in the hand of the soldier, and sacrifices victims in the hand of the executioner.

XXIX.

The Marseillaise preserves notes of the song of glory and the shriek of death:  glorious as the one, funereal like the other, it assures the country, whilst it makes the citizen turn pale.  This is its history.

There was then a young officer of artillery in garrison at Strasbourg, named Rouget de Lisle.  He was born at Lons-le-Saunier, in the Jura, that country of reverie and energy, as mountainous countries always are.  This young man loved war like a soldier—­the Revolution like a thinker.  He charmed with his verses and music the slow dull garrison life.  Much in request from his twofold talent as musician and poet, he visited the house of Dietrick, an Alsatian patriot (maire of Strasbourg), on intimate terms.  Dietrick’s wife and young daughters shared in his patriotic feelings, for the Revolution was advancing towards the frontiers, just as the affections of the body always commence at the extremities.  They were very partial to the young officer, and inspired his heart, his poetry, and his music.  They executed the first of his ideas hardly developed, confidantes of the earliest flights of his genius.