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Legion. With him in the ranks was Yurek Mintz, the son of the Mintz family from Warsaw.

When Yurek had left home to enlist, his mother had collapsed. Helpless and hysterical, she had been taken to the Rothschild Hospital. But the drama that took place rue Simon Bolivar impressed no one that day. The strains of the Marseillaise had radio-activized the very air and merged all individual sorrows and sentiments into one massive and collective outpourings of patriotic feeling.

From all corners of the city, youths with valises in their hands and with their girls clinging to their arms, made their way to the enlistment centers.

Among the recruits was Morris Berger, naturalized citizen and father of two sons, future soldiers of France. At last, he thought, the crater had erupted, its volcanic hatred shooting through the clefts of the cranium, letting loose the devil of madness. Men had challenged God, erecting their Babeltower of pride that scraped the heavens, and now they were pinned beneath the sky-towering structure that had collapsed into the dust. Seeking to climb to God they had sunk beneath the Beast. With all his being, Berger felt that God and Good would triumph in the end, and that he had staked his future with the onward moving forces of life. Now he had a cause to live for, fight for, and even to die for.

Yes, the heart of the city beat at fever pitch. The blood surged with an accelerated tempo through its veins and arteries, its ebb and flow reaching every corner, even the most hidden cells of the national body. France was at bay, fighting for its life. Its mighty struggle for survival shook the country to its foundations, causing faint hearts to beat with courage and faltering feet to march steadier to the martial music of the Marseillaise.