Meanwhile till the time comes when there will be no frontiers, there are
alliances so shamelessly based upon the exigencies of suspicion and
mistrust that their cohesive force waxes and wanes with every year,
almost with the event of every passing month. This is the atmosphere
Russia will find when the last rampart of tyranny has been beaten down.
But what hands, what voices will she find on coming out into the light of
day? An ally she has yet who more than any other of Russia's allies has
found that it had parted with lots of solid substance in exchange for a
shadow. It is true that the shadow was indeed the mightiest, the darkest
that the modern world had ever known--and the most overbearing. But it
is fading now, and the tone of truest anxiety as to what is to take its
place will come, no doubt, from that and no other direction, and no
doubt, also, it will have that note of generosity which even in the
moments of greatest aberration is seldom wanting in the voice of the
French people.
Two neighbours Russia will find at her door. Austria, traditionally
unaggressive whenever her hand is not forced, ruled by a dynasty of
uncertain future, weakened by her duality, can only speak to her in an
uncertain, bilingual phrase.
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