e 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.

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