It was in their hands that it received those wounds.
While they carried it, flung to the breeze of battle, it was shot-torn and storm-riven.

It is a priceless treasure to them all.

As they followed it with the ardor and devotion of youth so they now guard it and respect it with the steadier but not less intense consecration of maturity and old age.
The eagle of a vanished empire, the emblem of a fame that is past.

It is as real to them as when into the hands of one of them it was given by the Emperor himself on the Champ de Mars so long ago when he was lord of the world.

And so long as they live they will love it, reverence it, guard it, salute it as in the past..