"I wonder what those men up there are thinking!" he muttered. "I wonder
if any star knows that Bismarck ever existed! . . . I wonder if the
planets are aware of the divine mission of the German nation!"

And he continued laughing.

Some far-away and uncertain noise disturbed the stillness of the night,
slipping through some of the chinks that cut the immense plain of roofs.
The three turned their heads so as to hear better. . . . The sound
of voices cut through the thick silence of night--a masculine chorus
chanting a hymn, simple, monotonous and solemn. They guessed at what it
must be, although they could not hear very well. Various single notes
floating with greater intensity on the night wind, enabled Argensola to
piece together the short song, ending in a melodious, triumphant yell--a
true war song:

C'est l'Alsace et la Lorraine,
C'est l'Alsace qu'il nous faut,
Oh, oh, oh, oh.

A new band of men was going away through the streets below, toward the
railway station, the gateway of the war. They must be from the outlying
districts, perhaps from the country, and passing through silence-wrapped
Paris, they felt like singing of the great national hope, that those who
were watching behind the dark facades might feel comforted, knowing that
they were not alone.

"Just as it is in the opera," said Julio listening to the last notes of
the invisible chorus dying away into the night.