The Frontier
by Maurice Leblanc
"The border" is the old idea of the conflict between the old and the new, between fathers and sons, between the tense beliefs of yesterday and the pre-purple. The form that Le Blanc reproduces is the conflict between loyalty to the country and commitment to this last ideal, world peace. His father is a strong former French patriot who fought in the war with Germany, whose heart is still bitter, and whose hatred is quickly inflamed by the thought of Alsace and Lorraine. His son is a history professor whose research taught him how useless bloodshed and violence are. The scene is at his father's house, on the border, and he has led to a battle between France and Germany, which, like a storm from the summer sky, has failed in the last few episodes. It touched on this tense and painful emotional drama going on between father and son. and so skillfully woven that his admirable performance is one of the fateful glimmers of spontaneous human passion that French novelists are, of course, accustomed to presenting as matter.
