almost learned the tune. You can imagine how a Frenchman--he was a young
fellow, who lived in a rear tenement over on the other side of
Montmartre--would write that song. The little boy, who was going to
"free his brothers back there in Alsace" when he grew up, playing
soldier--"Joyeux, il murmurait: Je suis petit, en somme, Mais viendra
bien le jour, ou je serai un homme, Ardeat! Vaillanti..."--the
Prussians--monstres odieux--smashing into the village, the cry "Maman!
Maman!"--and after each verse a pause, and slowly and lower down, with
the crowd joining in, "Petit--enfant" ("Little boy, close your big blue
eyes, for the bandits are hideous and cruel, and they will kill you if
they read your brave thoughts") "ferme tes grands yeux bleus."

The violins mixed with the voices of the market-women, crying their
artichokes and haricots, and above them rang--"Ardent! Vaillant! ..."
Audit might have been the voice of Paris itself, lying down there in her
mist, Paris of lost Alsace and hopeless revanche, of ardor and charm
crushed once, as they might be again, as the voice of that pale girl in
black, with her air of coming from lights and cigarette smoke, and of
these simple mothers rose above the noise of the street, half dirge,
half battle-cry, while out beyond somewhere the little soldiers in red
breeches were fighting, and the fate of France hung in the balance, that
morning.




Chapter III

After The Marne