From Malta to Marseilles.

From the bows of our boat as she lay in harbour at Marseilles, I “spotted” three typical figures. The one holding the rope is a French sailor, the one at the bottom of the picture is a French gendarme, and the third is a Ghurka, one of our fine sturdy hillmen from India, who had come out to France to stand by the Empire.

Marseilles was a most wonderful sight at the time I was there, and although I had made many previous visits in normal times, when I had greatly admired its grand proportions, none of them had given me any idea of what its appearance would be when it became the clearing station in the time of such a great war, and one of the chief bases of all food supplies. Troops of all descriptions were working like ants by day and by night, unloading boats to the huge stores of all descriptions of provender, and loading the trains with all kinds of artillery, ammunition, Red Cross wagons, motors, horses, and all the paraphernalia of modern warfare.

The town is the third largest in France, and the chief Mediterranean seaport. Its history teems with exciting incidents of plague, fire, sacking, siege, and hand-to-hand fighting, so it is quite in keeping that it should take so important a part in the present conflict. It was here Monte Cristo was hurled from the Chateau d’If in the sack from which he cut his escape. Francis the First besieged it in vain, and it prospered under King René. In the French Revolution it figured so conspicuously as to give the title to the national hymn of the French.

THE STORY OF “THE MARSEILLAISE.”

Is it too late to tell again the story of the origin of “The Marseillaise”?

Its author and composer (or it might be more correct to say composer and author, for in this case music preceded words), Rouget de Lisle a young aristocrat and an artillery officer had as a friend a citizen of Strasbourg, to whose house, in the early days of the Revolution, he came on a visit one evening. The tired guest was cordially welcomed by the citizen and his wife and daughter. To celebrate the occasion his friend sent the daughter into the cellar to bring up wine. Exhausted as he was, de Lisle drank freely, and, sitting up late with his host, did not trouble to go to bed. He had been amusing the family by playing some of his original compositions on the spinnet. When the host retired for the night he left de Lisle asleep with his head resting on the instrument. In the early hours of the morning the young officer awoke, and running through his head was a melody which, in his semi-drunken state the evening before, he had been attempting to extemporise. It seemed to haunt him, and, piecing it together as it came back to his memory, he played it over. Then, feeling inspired, he immediately set words to it. When the family came down he played and sang it to them, and his host was so moved by it that he became quite excited and called in the neighbours. The instrument was wheeled out into the garden, and in the open air young de Lisle sang the song that was to become the national air of his country to this local audience. The effect upon them was “terrific,” and from that moment the song became the rage. It seemed to embody the whole spirit of the Revolutionists, and spread like wildfire throughout France. It was to this song that the unbridled spirits of Marseilles marched to Paris, hence its name, “The Marseillaise.” Shortly after this, de Lisle received a letter from his mother, the Baroness, dated from her chateau, saying, “What is this dreadful song we hear?” Fearing that his own life might be in danger, he being an aristocrat and a suspect, he had before long to take flight across the mountains. As he went from valley to crag, and crag to valley, he time after time heard the populace singing his song, frequently having to hide behind rocks lest they discovered him. It sounded to him like a requiem, for he knew that many of his friends were being marched to the scaffold to his own impassioned strains.