So did Father Fitzpatrick, though he gave Lucien a start by pronouncing the Latin of his prayers in a most peculiar fashion. Galtier glanced sharply over at Father Pierre. The local priest remained calm. That let Lucien also remain calm. If Father Pierre thought Father Fitzpatrick’s pronunciation acceptable, God likely would, too.

After Dr. O’Doull had opened Nicole’s veil and kissed her, after he had set a ring on her finger, people headed across the street to the hall Lucien had hired for the reception-the money Major Quigley had paid for back rent for the land on which the hospital stood was proving useful in all sorts of ways. Once there, Lucien got a drink and then found an excuse to get Father Pierre in a corner and ask him about Father Fitzpatrick’s Latin.

Father Pierre was also holding a drink. He knocked it back, chuckled, and answered, “You need have no concern over that. English and Irish and American priests are in the habit of pronouncing their Latin as they believe the ancient Romans would have spoken.”

“And you, how do you pronounce your Latin?” Lucien asked.

“In the same way as does His Holiness the Pope,” Father Pierre said. “I think I have made the better choice, but the other is in no way evil, merely different.”

“I also think you have made the better choice,” Lucien said. “In your mouth, Latin sounds splendid. In Father Fitzpatrick’s mouth, I found it harsh and rather ugly.”

“Part of that is because you are not used to it,” the priest of St.-Antonin replied. “Their way does have a certain majesty to it-although, as I say, I prefer our own.” He rolled his eyes. “Trust English-speakers to pay no attention to what the rest of the world does.” Galtier laughed at that.

“Where is the joke, mon beau-pere?” Leonard O’Doull asked. He could properly call Lucien his father-in-law now.

“Yes, Father, where is the joke?” Nicole echoed. Instead of Galtier’s arm, she clung with proud possessiveness to her new husband’s.

“It is a matter of Latin,” Lucien answered. With any luck at all, that would impress and confuse both the newlyweds.

It worked with his daughter, but not with O’Doull. The doctor thumped his forehead with the heel of his free hand. “But of course! I’m an idiot. Fitz learned his Latin the Ciceronian way, same as I did. But you folks here pronounce it as if the Romans had been Italians, don’t you? He must have sounded pretty funny to you.”

“If our way is good enough for the Holy Father in Rome, it is good enough for me,” Galtier said. Behind him, Father Pierre nodded. “And yes, your friend’s Latin did sound odd, though I am given to understand it is also good, of its kind.”

He wondered if that would insult the American. Instead, he saw that O’Doull was having a hard time not laughing. “Fitz’s Latin is certainly better than mine, these days,” his son-in-law said. “Who but a priest has the chance to keep his grasp of the language so fresh?”

“You have reason,” Father Pierre said. “I speak no English, I am sorry to say, and many priests who do speak English know not a word of French-unlike your friend Father Fitzpatrick, whose French is very good, if, like his Latin, spoken in an interesting way. But with such folk I speak in Latin, and I am understood. Even with the differences in pronunciation, I am understood.”

“It’s like the difference between the French of Paris and the French of Quebec,” O’Doull said.

“Why, so it is!” The priest of St.-Antonin beamed at him, then turned to Lucien and slapped him on the back. “You are a fortunate man, to have a scholar as part of your family.”

“I am a fortunate man,” Lucien said. “That is enough. And if I owe some of my good fortune to an American-why then, I do, that is all.”

Before either Leonard O’Doull or Father Pierre could say anything to that, shouts from the street distracted both of them and Galtier, too. A couple of people near the doorway called out to learn what was going on. Lucien heard the reply very clearly: “The flag of the Republic of Quebec flies over the city of Quebec!”

Several other people who also heard shouted for joy. A moment later, somebody punched one of them in the nose. Half a dozen men jumped on the puncher and threw him out. To Lucien’s dismay, he saw the fellow sprawled in the street with his trousers torn was a cousin he’d always liked pretty well.

Before the reception could turn into a free-for-all, he let out a great bellow: “Enough!” He was loud enough to make everyone turn around and notice him. Still at the top of his lungs, he went on, “This is a wedding, not a political rally. Anyone who wishes to make it a political rally will answer to me.” He cocked a fist, leaving no doubt about what he meant.

“And me!” Georges and Charles said in the same breath, standing shoulder to shoulder with their father.

That settled that. People horrified at the victory of the Americans and the Republic of Quebec (very much in that order) over the Canadian and British troops defending the capital of what had been the Canadian province of Quebec kept that horror to themselves. Lucien Galtier felt some, as he watched the world with which he was long familiar crack further. But his manner also persuaded those who were delighted with the success of the Republic to keep their mouths shut. The reception went on.

Marie came up to him and spoke quietly: “You did very well there.”

“Did I?” Lucien shrugged. “I do not know. What should I feel? I was torn in two when France lay down her arms to Germany. Now I am torn in two again. What we had is not what we shall have.”

“Change.” His wife spoke the word as if it were more filthy than tabernac. “Why can the world not stay as it has always been?”

Now it was Galtier’s turn to whisper: “You ask this at the wedding of your eldest daughter to an American doctor? How many American doctors would have come to the farm a-courting without the war? Not more than six or eight, I am certain.”

Marie stuck an elbow in his ribs. “And I am certain you are as much trouble as Georges, which is saying a good deal. I am also certain Dr. O’Doull is a fine young man, even if he is an American.”

“I am certain of this as well, else I should never have allowed him to join the family,” Galtier said. “And I am certain we have profited since the Americans came, when everything is taken all in all. But in doing so, we have turned our backs on everything that we knew and taken hold of everything that is new. Do you wonder that I worry on account of it?”

“I wonder that you worry so little on account of it,” Marie answered.

“This only shows that, wife of mine as you have been these many years, you do not know every dark place inside my heart,” Lucien told her. “I worry-how I worry! But I have got by…we have got by. And, old or new, we will go on getting by.” Now he spoke with great determination. After a moment, Marie nodded.

Lieutenant General George Custer was in a state, and, for once, his adjutant was damned if he blamed him. “On my front!” Custer shouted. “Roosevelt accepts a cease-fire on my front! Does he accept a cease-fire on any other front? In a pig’s arse he does! Why my front? Why my front alone?”

“He must have reasons,” Major Abner Dowling said, though he’d been hard pressed to find any that made sense to him.

“Oh, he has reasons, all right,” Custer snarled. He had no trouble finding them, either: “He wants to rob me of my glory, that’s what he wants to do. He always has, damn him. He never let me go to Canada, to lead our soldiers there. And now this is the front where we first broke through the Rebels’ lines. This is the front where the U.S. Army learned how to break through the Rebels’ lines. And this is the front Teddy Roosevelt chose to halt. Do I have to draw you a picture, Major?”

“Sir, you can’t mean that,” Dowling said.

He might as well not have spoken, for Custer ranted right through him: “That man in the White House has tried to rob me of the credit I deserve for the past thirty-five years. I was the one in command when we drove Chinese Gordon out of Montana during the Second Mexican War, but who stole the headlines? Roosevelt and his Unauthorized Regiment, that’s who. Tell me to my face, Major, that he’s not doing the same thing now. Look at the map and tell me that to my face!”