FULL OF
INVINCIBLE BELIEF IN VICTORY, HE HAS BEQUEATHED TO THE FRENCH
SOLDIER AN IMPERISHABLE MEMORY WHICH MUST ADD TO HIS
SELF-SACRIFICING SPIRIT AND WILL SURELY GIVE RISE TO THE NOBLEST
EMULATION.
"To deserve such a citation and die!" exclaimed a young officer after
reading it.
In his poem, _Le Vol de la Marseillaise_, Rostand shows us the twelve
Victories seated at the Invalides around the tomb of the Emperor rising
to welcome their sister, the Victory of the Marne. At the Pantheon, in
the crypt where they rest, Marshal Lannes and General Marceau, Lazare
Carnot, the organizer of victory, and Captain La Tour d'Auvergne will
rise in their turn on this young man's entrance. Victor Hugo, who is
there too, will recognize at once one of the knights in his _Legende des
Siecles_, and Berthelot will look upon his coming as an evidence of the
fervor of youth for France as well as for science. But of them all,
Marceau, his elder brother, killed at twenty-seven, will be the most
welcoming.
Traveling in the Rhine Valley some ten or twelve years ago, I made a
pilgrimage to Marceau's tomb, outside Coblenz, just above the Moselle.
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