ery key and to every tune. One of these songsters was a young
soldier, a lancer, with a bright intelligent look: he was standing
outside a cabaret with several companions, and trolling in a rich,
clear voice a melody which seemed thoroughly to spring from his heart.
His eye alternately sparkled or dimmed as his words were animated or
affecting, and the expression he breathed into his notes was full of
feeling and admirably suited to all he sang. The last stanza of his
ballad was especially well given, and it seemed so entirely the
interpretation of his sentiments that I am sure more than one person
in the crowd must have thought that the young soldier was repeating a
composition of his own. This was the final strophe:

Ah, depuis si longtemps je prolonge mon reve,
La route est commencee, il faut que je l'acheve;
Il est trop tard pour m'arreter.
Que la gloire m'oublie, ou qu'elle me couronne,
Quel que soit mon destin, a lui je m'abandonne,
J'ai besoin de chanter.

I am not sure whether these verses are by Beranger or not, but they
certainly deserve to be.

As the song ended, the market-place was being rapidly filled by
streams of people who came pouring into it from all directions. The
crowd was now mostly composed of country-people, all dressed in
holiday garments, but in appearance, nevertheless, for the greater
part at least, the very reverse of happy. In almost every case the
families of peasants as they arrived walked into the church, of which
the doors were wide open to invite the faithful to mass, and from
which flowed occasionally into the tumult of the crowd without, like a
little brook of pure water into a bubbling, surging lake, a few waves
of gentle, calm religious music. Each one of the poor people who
entered to pray went up, as I noticed, to the charity-box and dropped
in a mite, in the hope, no doubt, that this good action might buy fair
fortune for a son or brother about to "draw." I also remarked that it
was toward the chapel of the Virgin that most of the suppliants bent
their steps, and more than one mother and sister, moved by a naive
faith which one can only respect, carried with them large nosegays of
winter flowers to lay at the feet of the Holy Mother's image.

As I left the church and stood looking at a poor ploughboy who, pale
with apprehension, was endeavoring to give to himself a look of
unconcern by smoking a big cigar in company with some soldiers, who
were lau