Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/125

Rh "And who cares?" cried the chanter of the Marseillaise. "We want no aristocrats among us. 'Çà ira! çà ira!'"

"We want no bad companions either," said Féron, who was standing near, "so you may keep your breath for your eternal 'Çà ira,' Guillaume St. Luc." Then, going over to Henri, he sat down beside him, and laying his hand on his shoulder, said in a low voice, "Keep up your heart, M. de Talmont. Who knows but you have a marshal's bâton in your knapsack?"

Henri felt grateful for the kind words, and perhaps yet more so for the form of address, which had not fallen upon his ear since the miserable morning when he marched out of Brie—a conscript. He placed his white, delicate hand in the rough palm of the blacksmith's son. "You are a good comrade," he said.

"I vowed you should find me that, the day Mademoiselle Clémence spoke to me so kindly," returned Féron.

"But as to the marshal's bâton," resumed Henri, "that is a fine story. Six feet of Russian clay to lie in is what more of us are likely to get, I fancy."

"No good comes of burying ourselves before we are dead," returned the cheery Féron. "Of course, some are killed in every war. It is their luck. If a Russian bullet has my name upon it, why, then, I shall have the consolation of falling in the greatest war of the greatest captain that ever lived. I shall see his eagles flap their wings over Moscow and St. Petersburg. I shall die in the hour of victory, and I shall die shouting, 'Vive l'Empereur!'" In fact, the last words so nearly approached a shout already, that they were taken up and re-echoed by those around.

Then Féron resumed his low tone. "M. de Talmont, may I give you a word of advice?"

"Certainly, comrade."

"When you hear other people shouting, always shout too; and the greater fools you think them, the louder you