He halted irresistibly to glance at these flowers breathing of the south, and to glance at the shining statue.

Then he crossed the rue de Rivoli and, passing through the garden of the Tuileries, emerged upon the Place de la Concorde.
On the Place de la Concorde the cool, clean hand of the morning had drawn its most striking picture; here, in the great, unsheltered spaces, the frost had fallen heavily, softening and beautifying to an inconceivable degree.

The suggestion of modernity that ordinarily hangs over the place was veiled, and the subtle hints of history stole forth, binding the imagination.

It needed but a touch to materialize the dream as the boy crossed the white roadway, shadowed by the white statuary, and with an odd appropriateness the touch was given.
One moment his mind was a sea of shifting visions, the next it was caught and held by an inevitably thrilling sound--the sound of feet tramping to a martial tune.

The touch had been given: the vague visions of tradition and history crystallized into a picture, and his heart leaped to the pulsing, steady tramp, to the clash of fife and drum ringing out upon the fine cold air.
All humanity is drawn by the sight of soldiers.