II
When Madame Bordas had done all the fêtes of our neighbourhood, she became ambitious to try the towns. There, as in the villages, the Montelaise shone. She sang “la Pologne” with her flag in her hand, she put into it so much soul, such emotion, that she made every one tremble with excitement.
At Avignon, at Cette, Toulouse and Bordeaux she was adored by the people. At last she said:
“Now only Paris remains.”
So she went to Paris. Paris is the pinnacle to which all aspire. There as in the provinces she soon became the idol of the people.
It was during the last days of the Empire; ‘the chestnut was commencing to smoke,’ and Rose Bordas sang the Marseillaise. Never had a singer given this song with such enthusiasm, such frenzy; to the workmen of the barricades she represented an incarnation of joyous liberty, and Tony Révillon, a Parisian poet of the day, wrote of her in glowing strains in the newspaper.
III
Then, alas! came quickly, one on the heels of the other, war, defeat, revolution, and siege, followed by the Commune and its devil’s train. The foolish Montelaise, lost in it all as a bird in the tempest, intoxicated by the smoke, the whirl, the favour of the populace, sang to them “Marianne” like a little demon. She would have sung in the water—still better in the fire.
One day a riot surrounded her in the street and carried her off like a straw to the palace of the Tuileries.
The reigning populace were giving a fête in the Imperial salon. Arms, black with powder, seized “Marianne”—for Madame Bordas was Marianne to them—and mounted her on the throne in the midst of red flags.