Through the drab streets of Paris' Red Belt the grim word flashed: "Comrades, to the barricades! The Virgin of Boulogne is coming!"
Factory and tenement poured forth their faithful proletarians. No one sang the Ça ira, no one screamed, "à la lanterne!" But horny fists were raised and Marxist throats intoned the Internationale. At Ivry-sur-Seine, across the high road from the south, rose a barrier of cars, trucks and packing boxes.
Save France! Up from the vernal south the gold-and-plaster Virgin moved triumphantly. Twentieth-Century France hailed the religious procession, a war-delayed commemoration of the Virgin's 1,300th anniversary. The faithful were as reverent now...
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