It was in the winter of 1792, and there was a scarcity in Strasbourg.  The house of Dietrick was poor, and the table humble; but there was always a welcome for Rouget de Lisle.  This young officer was there from morning to night, like a son or brother of the family.  One day, when there was only some coarse bread and slices of ham on the table, Dietrick, looking with calm sadness at De Lisle, said to him, “Plenty is not seen at our feasts; but what matter if enthusiasm is not wanting at our civic fetes, and courage in our soldiers’ hearts.  I have still a bottle of wine left in my cellar.  Bring it,” he added, addressing one of his daughters, “and we will drink to liberty and our country.  Strasbourg is shortly to have a patriotic ceremony, and De Lisle must be inspired by these last drops to produce one of those hymns which convey to the soul of the people the enthusiasm which suggested it.”  The young girls applauded, fetched the wine, filled the glasses of their old father and the young officer until the wine was exhausted.  It was midnight, and very cold.  De Lisle was a dreamer; his heart was moved, his head heated.  The cold seized on him, and he went staggering to his lonely chamber, endeavouring, by degrees, to find inspiration in the palpitations of his citizen heart; and on his small clavicord, now composing the air before the words, and now the words before the air, combined them so intimately in his mind, that he could never tell which was first produced, the air or the words, so impossible did he find it to separate the poetry from the music, and the feeling from the impression.  He sung every thing—­wrote nothing.

XXX.

Overcome by this divine inspiration, his head fell sleeping on his instrument, and he did not awake until daylight.  The song of the over night returned to his memory with difficulty, like the recollections of a dream.  He wrote it down, and then ran to Dietrick.  He found him in his garden.  His wife and daughters had not yet risen.  Dietrick aroused them, called together some friends as fond as himself of music, and capable of executing De Lisle’s composition.  Dietrick’s eldest daughter accompanied them, Rouget sang.  At the first verse all countenances turned pale, at the second tears flowed, at the last enthusiasm burst forth.  The hymn of the country was found.  Alas! it was also destined to be the hymn of terror.  The unfortunate Dietrick went a few months afterwards to the scaffold to the sound of the notes produced at his own fireside, from the heart of his friend, and the voices of his daughters.