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Tortuous Path Through: The arrangement of paving units in a path can subtly affect the speed at which you walk. A uniform grain along the path—for example, that created by bricks laid lengthwise in stretcher bond—can seem to hurry you on, whereas a less directional pattern will encourage a slower pace. The treatment may be chosen to suit the purpose of the path—a "slow" path where there is plenty to admire, a "faster" path where the aim is simply to provide access to another part of the garden.
It has been a long trail from the time of Charlemagne, who is thought to have been born in Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle), to the present jumbled but hopeful era of Europe, and Germany's path has been a tortuous one. Germany became, and remained for seven centuries (962 to 1648) the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, which was a misnomer if there ever was one. This was broken to a hundred fragments and more by the Thirty Years War, and until Bismarck came along in the middle of the 19th century there was no real Germany, but only a multitude of little principalities and independent cities.
Hitler wiped this out in 1940, and at the close of World War II the Fourth Republic was born. It follows a tortuous path through a troubled era but the French people have effected such a full recovery of their traditional joie-de-vivre that we visitors, taking little thought for the protracted growing pains of the Fourth Republic, have to remind ourselves of what France has suffered. The greatest compliment a Frenchman can give us is to tell us we are pres du coeur francais, near to the French heart. It is a kind of phrase that we merit only if we have understanding. |
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