Page:Ruth of the U.S.A. (IA ruthofusa00balm).pdf/60



HE followed him about the fringes of the groups pressing into the great front room where a stringed orchestra was starting the first, glorious notes of the Marseillaise; and suddenly a man's voice, in all the power and beauty of the opera singer and with the passion of a Frenchman singing for his people, burst out with the battle song:

Allons, enfants de la Patrie, Le jour de gloire est arrivé! Contre nous de la tyrannie L'étendard sanglant est levé. . ..

It lifted her as nothing had ever before. "Go, children of your country; the day of glory is here! Against us the bloody standard of tyranny is raised! . . . ."

She had sung that marvelous hymn of the French since she was a child; before she had understood it at all, the leap and lilt of the verse had thrilled her. It had become to her next an historical song of freedom; when the war started—and America was not in—the song had ceased to resound from the past. The victory of the French upon the Marne, the pursuit to the Aisne; then the stand at Verdun gave it living, vibrant voice. Still it had been a voice calling to others—a voice which Ruth might hear