The outposts of France, as
one may call the great frontier provinces, were of all localities the
most devoted to the Fleurs de Lys. To witness, at any great crisis, the
generous devotion to these lilies of the little fiery cousin that in
gentler weather was for ever tilting at the breast of France, could not
but fan the zeal of France's legitimate daughters; while to occupy a
post of honour on the frontiers against an old hereditary enemy of
France would naturally stimulate this zeal by a sentiment of martial
pride, by a sense of danger always threatening, and of hatred always
smouldering. That great four-headed road was a perpetual memento to
patriotic ardour. To say "This way lies the road to Paris, and that
other way to Aix-la-Chapelle; this to Prague, that to Vienna,"
nourished the warfare of the heart by daily ministrations of sense. The
eye that watched for the gleams of lance or helmet from the hostile
frontier, the ear that listened for the groaning of wheels, made the
highroad itself, with its relations to centres so remote, into a manual
of patriotic duty.
The situation, therefore, _locally_, of Joanna was full of profound
suggestions to a heart that listened for the stealthy steps of change
and fear that too surely were in motion. But, if the place were grand,
the time, the burden of the time, was far more so.
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