We march'd by tens of thousands, we march'd through day and night, The Lily standard in our front, like Israel's holy light. Around us rush'd the rebels, as the wolf upon the sheep, We burst upon their columns, as the lion roused from sleep; We tore the bayonets from their hands, we slew them at their guns, Their boasted horsemen flew like chaff before our forest-sons; That eve we heap'd their baggage high their lines of dead between, And in the centre blazed to heaven their blood-dyed Guillotine!
In vain they hid their heads in walls; we rush'd on stout Thouar,-- What cared we for its shot or shell, for battlement or bar? We burst its gates; then, like the wind, we rush'd on Fontenaye-- We saw its flag at morning's light, 'twas ours by setting day. We crush'd, like ripen'd grapes, Montreuil, we tore down old Vetier-- We charged them with our naked breasts, and took them with a cheer. We'll hunt the robbers through the land, from Seine to sparkling Rhone. Now, "Here's a health to all we love. Our King shall have his own."
This song had an interest for me, independent of the spirit of the performer. It revived recollections of the noblest scene of popular attachment and faithful fortitude since the days of chivalry. I heard in it the names of all the great leaders of the Royalist army--names which nothing but the deepest national ingratitude will ever suffer France to forget; and it gave a glance at the succession of those gallant exploits by which the heroic peasantry and gentlemen of Anjou and Poitou had gained their imperishable distinction.
But the streets of a capital, itself almost in a state of siege, were not the scene for indulging in romance by starlight; and one of the patrols of soldiery, then going its rounds, suddenly ordered the group to disperse. The Frenchman, unluckily, attempted to apologise for his own appearance on the spot; and the attempt perplexed the matter still more. The times were suspicious, and a foreigner, and of all foreigners a Gaul, caught under cover of night singing songs of which the sergeant could not comprehend a syllable, was a personage in every way formed for the guard-house. The startled Frenchman's exclamations and wrath at discovering this purpose, only made the sergeant more positive; and he was marched off as a traitor convicted of guitar-playing and other traitorous qualities.