"Our fathers!"
"Other times their masters would cast them to wild beasts for amusement, or cause them to be put to death under frightful tortures if they refused to cultivate, under the conqueror's lash, the very lands that had belonged to them—"
"But listen," interposed the old man, gathering his recollections; "that puts me in mind of a song of our old friend, the friend of us poor folks—"
"The song of our Beranger, not so, grandfather—The Gallic Slaves?"
"Yes, my boy. It begins—let me see—yes—this is it:
"Some ancient Gauls, the wretched slaves,
One night, when all around were sleeping—
And the refrain ran:
"Poor Gauls, 'fore whom the world once trembled,
Let us drink to intoxication!"
Then it was our own fathers, the Gauls, that Beranger was referring to? Alas! Poor fellows, like so many others, no doubt, they took to drunkenness in order to forget their misfortunes."