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.

The new song, executed some days afterwards at Strasbourg, flew from
city to city, in every public orchestra. Marseilles adopted it to be
sung at the opening and the close of the sittings of its