When the family came down he played and sang it to them, and his host
was so moved by it that he became quite excited and called in the
neighbours. The instrument was wheeled out into the garden, and in the
open air young de Lisle sang the song that was to become the national
air of his country to this local audience. The effect upon them was
"terrific," and from that moment the song became the rage. It seemed to
embody the whole spirit of the Revolutionists, and spread like wildfire
throughout France. It was to this song that the unbridled spirits of
Marseilles marched to Paris, hence its name, "The Marseillaise." Shortly
after this, de Lisle received a letter from his mother, the Baroness,
dated from her chateau, saying, "What is this dreadful song we hear?"
Fearing that his own life might be in danger, he being an aristocrat and
a suspect, he had before long to take flight across the mountains. As he
went from valley to crag, and crag to valley, he time after time heard
the populace singing his song, frequently having to hide behind rocks
lest they discovered him. It sounded to him like a requiem, for he knew
that many of his friends were being marched to the scaffold to his own
impassioned strains.

[Illustration: QUAYSIDE, MARSEILLES.]

CHAPTER III.

FROM MARSEILLES TO ARMENTIERES.

The incidents of the railway journey from Marseilles to Etaples, _en
route_ to Armentieres, told in detail, would fill a book. It was made in
ordinary cattle trucks, in which, packed forty to a truck, we spent four
days and a half at one stretch. Yet was it a bright and merry trip, for
our spirits were raised to the highest by the thought that we were going
into action, and we were at all sorts of expedients to make ourselves
comfortable. For instance, before we started the Stationmaster's Office
was ransacked, and every available nail pulled out to make coat and hat
pegs of in the cattle trucks. We had to sleep on the floor. Our
corporal, who was an old soldier of many campaigns, of iron physique
and a perfect Goliath, and the life and soul of our party, was so tired
when he got aboard the train, after strenuous efforts, that he fell dead
asleep on the floor, and there was so little available space, and his
massive form took up so much of what there was, that no fewer than nine
men, as they became tired and dropped down from the walls of the truck,
fell on him and went to sleep on the top of him. However, that corporal
slep