Cette belle cocarde,
Dont j’aime tant à me parer
Quand je monte ma garde:
Vous devez préférer à l’or
Les fleurs à peine écloses;
Ce joli ruban tricolor
A tout l’éclat[l’éclat] des roses.
Sophie fastened the ribbon in her cap, and swept the audience with a glance comprehending both triumph and vacancy. Again there was applause. Monsieur Mille bowed. He gazed at the crowd without recognizing me or anybody else; or, rather, in that crowd he was conscious only of himself.
“Ah! monsieur,” exclaimed my neighbour, who in his enthusiasm was bestowing on me a tender embrace; “ah! if the Prussians or the Austrians could see that! They would shudder, monsieur! We were betrayed into their hands at Longwy and Verdun. But if they reached Paris it would be their tomb. The spirit of the populace is altogether martial. I have just come from the Tuileries gardens, monsieur. There I heard some singers stationed in front of the statue of Liberty giving voice to the war song of the Marseillais. A frenzied crowd was shouting in chorus the refrain ‘Aux armes; citoyens!’ If the Prussians had only been there! They would have disappeared underground!”