"Touch this sword with your hand if you please, Victoria—it will be a good augury for the day."
"Go, brave and good Marion," answered the Mother of the Camps returning the weapon after she had clasped the hilt with a virile hand; "go, Hesus is with Gaul!"
"Our battle cry shall be, 'Victoria!' and it will resound from one bank of the river to the other," Marion exclaimed with exaltation; and leaving precipitately he added: "I shall run for my friend Eustace, and then to our barks! to our barks!"
As Marion was rushing out of the room, several chiefs of legions and cohorts, having learned of the landing of the Franks from the officer who brought the tidings to the camp—tidings that rapidly spread among the soldiers—hastened to Victorin in order to receive the orders of their general.
"Place yourselves at the head of your detachments," he said to them, "and march to the parade ground. I shall join you there and assign you your posts in battle. I wish first to confer with my mother."
"We well know your valor and military genius," answered the oldest of the chiefs of the cohorts, a robust old man with a white beard. "Your mother, the angel of Gaul, watches by your side; we shall await your orders confident of victory."
"Mother," said the young general in touching accents, "your pardon, here before all, and a kiss from you will give me the needed courage for this day of bloody battle!"
"The excesses of my son have often saddened my heart, as they have the hearts of you all who have known him since his earliest days," said Victoria to the chiefs of the cohorts; "I hope you will forgive him as I do."
Saying this she clasped her son passionately to her heart.
"Infamous calumnies against Victorin have floated about the camp," the old captain proceeded to say. "We gave them no credence; but, less enlightened than ourselves, the soldier is ever hasty in censure as he is in praise. Follow the instructions of your august mother, Victorin, and no longer offer a handle to calumny. We shall wait for your orders on the parade ground; rely upon us, as we do upon you."