But the quiet does not last long. Towards five o’clock a frightful fire begins all at once. The troops in the front-line trenches, at the bottom of the hill, are decimated and cut down by a furious fire; they retreat and take refuge behind the defense works of the village. We make our final preparations. Evidently the enemy is going to try to take the village and has already begun its destruction. A storm of great shells falls on the trenches, very near us, some yards behind the houses. We hear terrific explosions, the falling of roofs, and fires break out everywhere. An order from the commander of the sector reaches us, “Maintain the position and hold on until the companies of reinforcements arrive.” The bombardment becomes more and more violent. As the sound of each shell whistles through the air we wonder if this infernal machine is going to strike in our dugout this time. And every two minutes, mathematically, the uproar comes again and this unimaginable suffering continues some hours. At the sound of each shell we close our eyes. We think of the loved ones with a calm certainty of never seeing them again. We begin to wish that it would end at once, rather than have to endure this terrible nervous tension longer. And the reinforcements cannot advance under the avalanche of fire and shell. Are they going to let us be massacred on the spot without defense? The Teuton artillery imagines that they have cleared the objective and their fire dies down. Cautiously but confident of their superiority and tactics, the Germans now appear in numbers. Suddenly, violently, like a clap of thunder the “Marseillaise” bursts on our ears—tremendously. It rushes out through all the breaches in the church; it comes through the cracks; it goes up through the fallen roof; it traverses the shattered windows. It unites in itself all human and celestial voices. The soul of a whole nation, the spirit of ancient glories, animates the old organ which sings its last song. With all the strength of its breath, with all the breath of its pipes, filled to bursting, with all the sonority of its bass, its horns, its flutes and violins, the organ hurls forth the sacred song. And it is not only the hymn of triumphant Liberty and the indignation of an avenging people in the face of the invader. Magnified by the liturgical sounds on the ritualistic instrument of sacred music, it is the Hosanna of Glory, the Sursam Corda of Faith, confident in the approaching victory, the Resurexit of the triumphant Past, and the De Profundis of brutal domination. And beside all that, all the songs of glory, all the exaltations of faith, all the clamor of Gregorian theogony vibrate in the notes of the “Marseillaise.” Under the humble vault of a hamlet chapel the organ plays the twice-blessed music, and intones the splendid Magnificat of the Republic, the hymn of the Trinity, thrice human, thrice divine, Liberty, Fraternity and Equality.