They offered hospitality to the old men and priests. It was impossible to provide for all, so the main body bivouacked in the open air.
Great fires were lighted, at which every one prepared his simple meal. There was no lack of wine in a country which particularly cultivated grapes.
On the morrow, at daybreak, all started at beat of drum. When the noise of the drum ceased, all joined in the chorus of the Ça ira of ’90, which has nothing in common with the menacing and bloodthirsty Ça ira of ’93.
This song kept up the energies of those men on the march, who were toiling along under a hot July sun, to the end of the journey. It supported those laborers who were making the arena, so to speak, where great deeds were to be done.
We have said that it was with an unwilling heart that the Assembly decreed the federation—that it was with an unwilling heart that the city had sent its workmen to the Champ de Mars, to prepare for that great and solemn reunion. The time approached—the work did not proceed. What happened?
All Paris rose, and proceeded to the Champ de Mars carrying various implements of labor—one a pickaxe another a shovel, and so on.
And not only did the people—not only did the bourgeoisie do this, but old men and children, lords and laborers, ladies of rank and women of shame, actors and actresses, priests and soldiers,—all joined in the work, which did not even close when night fell like a shroud over the city of Paris.
The invalids, who could not work on account of their being maimed, held the torches, to lighten them at their labors.
Begun in the morning of the 9th of July, this stupendous work was completed in the night of the 13th, two hours before sunrise.
We arrived on the 12th, in the evening.