The commandant was very pale, and we could see, though it was almost night, that he had fever. The gray lines of soldiers in the square, the commandant on horseback, the officers around him in the rain, the listening citizens, the profound silence, the opening of the windows in the vicinity, all are present to my mind though fifty years have passed since then. Not a word was said, for we all felt that we were going to learn the fate of France.
"Carry arms! shoulder arms!"
After this nothing was heard but the voice of the commandant, that voice which I had heard on the other side of the Rhine at Lutzen and Leipzig, saying:
"Close the ranks."
The words went through my very marrow.
"Soldiers!" said he, "Louis XVIII. left Paris on the 20th of March, and the Emperor Napoleon made his entry into the capital the same day."
A sort of shiver went through the crowd, but it lasted for a moment only, and the commandant continued:
"Soldiers, the flag of France is the flag of Arcola, of Rivoli, of Alexandria, of Chébreisse, of the Pyramids, of Aboukir, of Marengo, of Austerlitz, and of Jena, of Eylau, of Friedland, of Sommo-Sierra, of Madrid, of Abensberg, of Eckmül, of Essling, of Wagram, of Smolensk, of Moscowa, of Weissenfels, of Lutzen, of Bautzen, of Wurtschen, of Dresden, of Bischofswarda, of Hanau, of Brienne, of Saint Dizier, of Champaubert, of Chateau-Thierry, of Joinvilliers, of Méry-sur-Seine, of Montereau, and of Montmirail. It is the flag which we have dyed with our blood, and it is that which makes it our glory."
The old sergeant had drawn the torn flag from its case, and the commandant continued:
"Here is the flag! you recognize it; it is the flag of the nation, it is that flag which the Russians and Austrians and Prussians took from us on the day of their first victory, because they feared it."