The fires showed in the darkness like stains of blood; echoes of distant songs were wafted to them; the whole vague distance, blurred by the whitish vapours of the moon, stirred confusedly, and suddenly broke into a spasm of anger.

For leagues and leagues the scene remained the same.
These men, marching on under the blind impetus of the fever with which the events in Paris had inspired Republican hearts, became elated at seeing that long stretch of country quivering with revolt.

Intoxicated with enthusiastic belief in the general insurrection of which they dreamed, they fancied that France was following them; on the other side of the Viorne, in that vast ocean of diffused light, they imagined there were endless files of men rushing like themselves to the defence of the Republic.

All simplicity and delusion, as multitudes so often are, they imagined, in their uncultured minds, that victory was easy and certain.
They would have seized and shot as a traitor any one who had then asserted that they were the only ones who had the courage of their duty, and that the rest of the country, overwhelmed with fright, was pusillanimously allowing itself to be garrotted.
They derived fresh courage, too, from the welcome accorded to them by the few localities that lay along their route on the slopes of the Garrigues.

The inhabitants rose _en masse_ immediately the little army drew near; women ran to meet them, wishing them a speedy victory, while men, half clad, seized the first weapons they could find and rushed to join their ranks.