see their way clearly without the help of gunpowder to any decision upon
Joanna's intention, she--poor thing!--never could mistake her intentions
for a moment. All her love was for France; and, therefore, any glove
she might drop into the _quadrivium_ must be wickedly missent by the
post-office, if it found its way to any king but the king of France.

On whatever side of the border chance had thrown Joanna, the same love to
France would have been nurtured. For it is a strange fact, noticed by M.
Michelet and others, that the Dukes of Bar and Lorraine had for generations
pursued the policy of eternal warfare with France on their own account, yet
also of eternal amity and league with France in case anybody else presumed
to attack her. Let peace settle upon France, and before long you might rely
upon seeing the little vixen Lorraine flying at the throat of France. Let
Franco be assailed by a formidable enemy, and instantly you saw a Duke of
Lorraine or Bar insisting on having his throat cut in support of France;
which favor accordingly was cheerfully granted to them in three great
successive battles by the English and by the Turkish sultan, viz., at
Crécy, at Nicopolis, and at Agincourt.

This sympathy with France during great eclipses, in those that during
ordinary seasons were always teasing her with brawls and guerilla inroads,
strengthened the natural piety to France of those that were confessedly
the children of her own house. The outposts of France, as one may call the
great frontier provinces, were of all localities the most devoted to the
Flours 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 her breast, could not bin fan the zeal of the legitimate
daughter: whilst to occupy a post of honor on the frontiers against an old
hereditary enemy of France, would naturally have stimulated this zeal by a
sentiment of martial pride, had there even been no other stimulant to zeal