“Odd,” Grange thought, “that in this age of lightning wars it should be not an army but a colony that settles on our frontiers. Another year or two and this army will send down roots: it was a sign that already, at Moriarmé and elsewhere, a third of the officers have sent for their wives; I myself . . .”

Julien Gracq, Balcony in the Forest, loc. 274