The Blood of the Nation 



monuments in all the world, the memo- 

 rial of the Swiss guard of Louis XVI., 

 killed by the mob at the palace of Ver- 

 sailles. It is carved in the solid rock 

 of a vertical cliff above a great spring 

 in the outskirts of the city, a lion of 

 heroic size, a spear thrust through its 

 body, guarding in its dying paws the 

 Bourbon lilies and the shield of France. 

 And the traveller, Carlyle tells us, 

 should visit Lucerne and her monument, 

 " not for Thorwaldsen's sake alone, but 

 for the sake of the German Biederkeit 

 and Tapferkeit, the valor which is worth 

 and truth, be it Saxon, be it Swiss." 



Beneath the lion are the names of 

 those whose devotion it commemorates. 

 And with the thought of their courage 

 comes the thought of the pity of it, the 

 waste of brave life in a world that has 

 none too much. It may be fancy, but 

 it seems to me that, as I go about in 

 Switzerland, I can distinguish by the 



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