"Up, sons of France, the call of glory—"
Chenal swept down to the footlights. The words of the song swept over the audience like a bugle call. The singer wore a white silk gown draped in perfect Grecian folds. She wore the large black Alsatian head dress, in one corner of which was pinned a small tricolored cockade. She has often been called the most beautiful woman in Paris. The description was too limited. With the next lines she threw her arms apart, drawing out the folds of the gown into the tricolor of France—heavy folds of red silk draped over one arm and blue over the other. Her head was thrown back. Her tall, slender figure simply vibrated with the feeling of the words that poured forth from her lips. She was noble. She was glorious. She was sublime. With the "March on, march on," of the chorus, her voice arose high and fine over the full orchestra, and even above her voice could be sensed the surging emotions of the audience that seemed to sweep over the house in waves.
I looked up at the row of wounded. One man held his bandaged head between his hands and was crying. An officer in a box, wearing the gorgeous uniform of the headquarters staff, held a handkerchief over his eyes.
Through the second verse the audience alternately cheered and stamped their feet and wept. Then came the wonderful "Amour sacré de la patrie"—sacred love of home and country—verse. The crashing of the orchestra ceased, dying away almost to a whisper. Chenal drew the folds of the tricolor cloak about her. Then she bent her head and, drawing the flag to her lips, kissed it reverently. The first words came like a sob from her soul. From then until the end of the verse, when her voice again rang out over the renewed efforts of the orchestra, one seemed to live through all the glorious history of France. At the very end, when Chenal drew a short jeweled sword from the folds of her gown and stood, silent and superb, with the folds of the flag draped around her, while the curtain rang slowly down, she seemed to typify both Empire and Republic throughout all time. All the best of the past seemed concentrated there as that glorious woman, with head raised high, looked into the future.
And as I came out of the theater with the silent audience I said to myself that a nation with a song and a patriotism such as I had witnessed could not vanish from the earth—nor again be vanquished.
THE END
FRONT D'ARTOIS
NOTE
The attached map of the "Front d'Artois" is the first of the kind ever presented to the public. The author of this book has been specially authorized to reproduce it by the French Ministry of War, under whose direction it was first executed from photographs by French airmen taken on their trips over the German lines.