Valmond had spoken down at the aged
drummer, whose arms were young again, as once more he marched on Pratzen.
Suddenly from the sergeant's lips there broke, in a high, shaking voice,
to the rattle of the drum:
"Conscrits, au pas;
Ne pleurez pas;
Ne pleurez pas;
Marchez au pas,
Au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas!"
They had not gone twenty yards before fifty men and boys, caught in the
inflammable moment, sprang out from the crowd, fell involuntarily into
rough marching order, and joined in the inspiring refrain:
"Marchez au pas,
Au pas, au pas, au pas, au pas!"
The old man in front was charged anew. All at once, at a word from
Valmond, he broke into the Marseillaise, with his voice and with his
drum. To these Frenchmen of an age before the Revolution, the
Marseillaise had only been a song. Now in their ignorant breasts there
waked the spirit of France, and from their throats there burst out, with
a half-delirious ecstasy:
"Allons, enfants de la patrie,
Le jour de gloire est arrive."
As they neared the Louis Quinze, a dozen men, just arrived in the
village, returned from river-driving, carried away by the chant,
tumultuously joined in the procession, and so came on in a fever of vague
patriotism.
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