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The Swords Rejoined
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really happen—Tout arrive en France. We arrive in France. Look at this little message,” and he held out the scrap of paper. “There’s an omen for you superstitious hill folk. C’est elle qui—Mais oui, mais oui, c’est elle qui sauvera encore le monde.”

“France!” repeated MacIan, and his eyes awoke again in his head like large lamps lighted.

“Yes, France!” said Turnbull, and all the rhetorical part of him came to the top, his face growing as red as his hair. “France, that has always been in rebellion for liberty and reason. France, that has always assailed superstition with the club of Rabelais or the rapier of Voltaire. France, at whose first council table sits the sublime figure of Julian the Apostate. France, where a man said only the other day those splendid unanswerable words”—with a superb gesture—“‘we have extinguished in heaven those lights that men shall never light again.’”

“No,” said MacIan, in a voice that shook with a controlled passion, “but France, which was taught by St. Bernard and led to war by Joan of Arc. France that made the crusades. France that saved the Church and scattered the heresies by the mouths of Bossuet and Massillon. France,

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