Man and his motherland art … intransigent components within the grand, clockwork scheme of the gods. A man bereft of a country he may call home is a pitiful creature indeed, prone to wallow in the crueller sensibilities of the perpetual exile imposed upon him by mishap of birth. The spiritual vagrant is known to wander the darker corners of these Europid lands, leading a life of incessant self-grief and susceptible to petty-pillage and rapine – for with national commonality comes a moral principle that transcends even Christendom. In the way of property, he knows only his worn iron dagger, an ill-begotten copper for investment at the next alehouse, and the solitude he lugs over his right shoulder like a heavy knapsack. He dies clad in rags and tatters on the provincial roadside, devoid of anything to implicitly constitute a last wish or testimony, survived only by a late-night a-creaking on the floorboard of his favourite flophouse.
Likewise, a state claimed as home by many is nought but an open gaol if it is not subsidiary to the collective will of the people. The French republican institution is a peculiar one, for it embraces a man’s right to autonomy, encapsulated with such common eloquence in that great revolutionary triad – Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité – whilst overseeing the affairs of a nation surrounded to the east and west by the age-old champions of the feudal pyramid. The toiler of Saxony or Lancashire is a cowed, apprehensive character, accepting no reality beyond that of the archaic obligations thrust upon him and his circle by a callous master. The peasant of Brittany and Silvia is a different character. He is valued not for his ability to withhold grimaces when subjected to a flogging, or his compliance in turning over the surplus winter stock to ill-intentioned keepers. He is bound by accord to a lessor fully accountable to the magistrate; and, when he works the plough and drains the herd, he is doing so, first and foremost, in the name of France.
The sovereign of England is a George or William. The sovereign of France is Pierre the swineherd, Auguste the tailor, Bruno the presbyter – cohesive units behind the red, white and blue cockade in all its ceremonious glory!