When the revolutionary committee hailed me as "liberator," I thought they had mistaken me for some one else, and asked the leaders if they had not done so. "No," they said; "we have heard of you and want you to join the revolution." It seemed that they had kept track of my rapid progress around the world, and told me they knew when I was at Port Said, and had prepared to receive me as soon as I landed in Marseilles.
"Six thousand people are waiting for you now in the opera-house," they said.
"Waiting for me?" I asked, incredulous. "How long have they been waiting, and what are they waiting for?"
"They have been assembled for an hour; and they want you to address them in behalf of the revolution."
"Well," said I, making a decision immediately, "I can not keep these good people waiting. I will go with you." I had decided to trust to the inspiration of the moment, when I should stand face to face with that volatile French audience.
From the moment I entered the opera-house, packed with excited people from the stage to the topmost boxes, I was possessed by the French revolutionary spirit. The fire and enthusiasm of the people swept me from my feet. I was thenceforth a "Communist," a member of their "Red Republic." I felt this, as soon as I joined that cheering and ecstatic mob—for it really was a mob then, and mobs have been the germs of all great national movements in France.
A committee of some sort, prepared for the occasion, immediately seized hold of me, and we marched, or rushed, through the crowd, down the aisle, and up on the stage. About 250 persons, the more important movers in the agitation, I suppose, were standing, all cheering at the top of their voices. As I was placed upon the stage, in front of the audience, there came a burst of cheers of "Vive la République!" "Vive la Commune!" and many were shouting out my name with a French accent and a nasal "n." It was irresistible. I stepped to the front of the stage and tried to speak, but for several minutes could not utter a word that could be heard a foot away, the din of the shouting and cheering was so overwhelming.
When the shouting ceased, I told the people that I was in Marseilles on a trip around the world, but as they had called upon me to take part in their movement, I should be glad to repay, in my own behalf, a small portion of the enormous debt of gratitude that my country owed to France for Lafayette, Rochambeau, and de Grasse. I repeated a part of the "Marseillaise," which always stirs Frenchmen to the depths, and a few verses from Holmes's poem on France—
"Pluck Condé's baton from the trench, Wake up stout Charles Martel; Or give some woman's hand to clench The sword of La Pucelle!"
I also urged that France should not yield an inch of her territory to the rapacious Prussians.