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barely let in any light, even if it wasn’t choked with soot as it is now. Today, the building is just a few doors from the Society of Young French Buddhists, whose courtyard has a pagoda in it and is full of men in saffron robes. I doubt any of them are fans of a song as violent as ‘La Marseillaise’.
    *
    I gave up cycling. It happened four days in. That morning I set off from a town called Valence – 136 miles from Marseilles; only 364 miles from Paris. The day started well, with a pretty ride through vineyards where teams of workers were picking grapes, piling them into trucks, hundreds of boxes at a time, so much juice squeezing out of the grapes at the bottom it made me want to stop and find a glass.
    But then I hit another hill. A big hill at that. And worse, one with that bloody mistral wind blowing straight down it and into me. The road had large stones at the side to mark each kilometre of the climb. At marker one I got off my bike and pushed. I could feel a blister on my foot threatening to pop with every step. I could hear my knees creaking – and when you’re thirty-one, hearing your knees creak is a worrying sign. In an effort to get some energy I ate a preserved sausage I’d bought back in Aix-en-Provence but it was stuffed with olives and the salt just made me thirsty. I put on some music – dance tunes to trick me into thinking I was in an aerobics class and force me up the hill – but one of my headphones had stopped working and being deafened in one ear was hardly what I needed.
    It was around that point I realised I had no other option but to take inspiration from the 517 marchers and try singing ‘La Marseillaise’. I’d been studying it; I knew all the words now. Ask for any line and I’d give it back to you probably quicker than the French president. Give me the fifth and sixth! ‘
Entendez-vous dans les campagnes
/
MUUUU-GIR ces féroces soldats?
’ The third in the chorus! ‘
Marchons! March-ONS!
’ If there was ever a time to test the power of this song, it was now.
    And so I got on my bike, stood up to pedal the first few metres to build up speed, then straightened my back, pushed out my chest and lifted my head high to sing. I wanted every one of those triumphant words echoing down the valley behind me. ‘
Allons enfants de la PATRI-E
,’ I started no problem. ‘Arise, children of the fatherland’, it means. I punched out each syllable like a soldier. ‘
Le jour de gloire est arrivé!
’ I went on just as strongly. The day of glory has arrived. My old choir teacher would be proud if he could see me now, I thought. But then I got on to the third line – ‘
Contre nous de la tyrannie
’ – or, more to the point, one word into it, when I turned a corner, saw the road became twice as steep, felt the wind blasting my face with dust, and realised this wasn’t for me. I just stumbled off. Pathetically. Miserably. I hadn’t even reached the chorus.
    My respect for the 517 Marseillais men grew in that moment. They just kept going for twenty-eight days regardless of the weather. They were willing to march all the way across France for as vague a mission as ‘striking down a tyrant’. That one song – just 302 words – drew qualities out of them I can’t imagine.
    Having said that, as I pulled out my map to find the nearest station, I did wonder what would have happened if they’d had trains back then. It was time to pack the cycling in and get a train to Lyon, I decided; to get back into an environment with concrete and skyscrapers and grime and dirt. The sort of place I’m used to. That decision turned out to be all the motivation I needed to get up the hill.
    *
    Throughout my time in France, I’ve been talking to people about ‘La Marseillaise’, trying to work out what it really means for France today.
    I met a man called Didier Cantarel who was working in a wine cellar. Compact and shaven-headed with a big smile, he comically sang the anthem while pouring me a glass