linefeed ^L symbol

[Tyler Smith]

Hi,

I've just reinstalled Emacs 22.1 from source on Debian Lenny. I notice
now that ^L shows up here and there, presumably where a newline should
be. Does this mean I've messed something up something in the config? I
shouldn't be seeing escape characters like this should I?

Examples:
>From the Paragraph Start customize variable window:
Paragraph Start: Hide Value \|[        ]*$\|.* wrote:$\|.* wrote:$

The actual value of this variable is:
"\f\\|[         ]*$\\|.* wrote:$\\|.* wrote:$\\|.* wrote:$\\|.* wrote:$"

I'm also confused as to why I should have \f in there to begin with,
since I think Unix-like systems use \n instead?

Thanks for any clarification,

Tyler