At last there was silence, and Diane, pointing with her white gloved hand straight at Jean not ten feet away, cried in her clear, practised, penetrating voice:
“There is a man who can sing La Marseillaise better than I can. Bring him here, and make him sing it, too.”
The crowd, cheering and laughing, immediately seized Jean, and, in spite of his modest protests, hurled him into the carriage, where he sat down protesting and embarrassed. While the multitude was quieting down, Diane and he exchanged a few words.
“Why haven’t you been to see me in all these years?” said Diane.
“Because you were too grand,” said Jean. “I didn’t want to thrust myself upon a great artist. You might have thought that I wanted you to do something for me, or to get me an engagement. But I have often gone to the music-halls to hear you.”
“You were always a goose about some things, Jean Leroux!” was Diane’s reply.
And then the silence was complete, and the multitudes that packed the streets a mile on either hand waited to hear the first word of the hymn of battle.
As Diane stood up in the carriage, her slim figure grew taller, and her blood turned to fire in her veins; her voice cleft the air like a silver trumpet, sweet and penetrating, and vibrant with patriotic passion. When she proclaimed,
“The day of glory has arrived!”
the effect was like Jeanne d’Arc striking her spear upon her shield. Then came the great refrain,