However, an object soon drew the general attention so strongly, as to put an end to private curiosity for the time. This was a mask in the uniform of a national guard, but so outrageously fine that his _entrée_ excited an universal burst of laughter. But when, after a few displays of what was apparently all but intoxication, he began a detail of his own exploits, it was evident that the whole was a daring caricature; and as nothing could be less popular among us than the heroes of the shops, the Colonels Calicot, and Mustaches _au comptoir_, all his burlesque told incomparably. The old officers among us, the Vendéans, and all the ladies--for the sex are aristocrats under every government and in every region of the globe--were especially delighted. "Alexandre Jules Cæsar," colonel of the "brave battalion of the Marais," was evidently worth a dozen field-marshals in his own opinion; and his contempt for Vendôme, Marlborough, and Frederick le Grand, was only less piquant than the perfect imitation and keen burlesque of Santerre, Henriot, and our municipal warriors. At length when his plaudits and popularity were at their height, he proposed a general toast to the "young heroism," of the capital, and prefaced it by a song, in great repute in the old French service.
"Shoulder arms--brave regiment! Hark, the bugle sounds 'advance.' Pile the baggage--strike the tent; France demands you--fight for France. If the hero gets a ball, His accounts are closed--that's all!
"Who'd stay wasting time at home, Made for women to despise; When, where'er we choose to roam, All the world before us lies, Following our bugle's call, Life one holiday--that's all!
"When the soldier's coin is spent, He has but to fight for more; He pays neither tax nor rent, He's but where he was before. If he conquer, if he fall-- _Fortune de la guerre_--that's all!
"Let the pedant waste his oil, With the soldier all is sport; Let your blockheads make a coil In the cloister or the court; Let them fatten in their stall, We can fatten too--that's all!
"What care we for fortune's frown, All that comes is for the best; What's the noble's bed of down To the soldier's evening rest On the heath or in the hall, All alike to him--that's all!