They had been burned into them by the fiery furnace
through which they had passed. But we, who had grown up upon a strange
soil, understood that the world had moved, and that new issues had
arisen. We were inclined to forget these feuds of the last generation.
France to us was no longer the murderous land of the _sans-culotte_ and
the guillotine basket; it was rather the glorious queen of war, attacked
by all and conquering all, but still so hard pressed that her scattered
sons could hear her call to arms for ever sounding in their ears. It
was that call more than my uncle's letter which was taking me over the
waters of the Channel.
For long my heart had been with my country in her struggle, and yet
while my father lived I had never dared to say so; for to him, who had
served under Conde and fought at Quiberon, it would have seemed the
blackest treason. But after his death there was no reason why I should
not return to the land of my birth, and my desire was the stronger
because Eugenie--the same Eugenie who has been thirty years my wife--was
of the same way of thinking as myself.
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