the Alsatians as Prussia had gone among | Swabian then is Swabian now, what was her Polish subjects or among the people Franconian then is Franconian still. Into of north Slesvig-a people of strange the Swabian districts a Swabian from form and strange language, and differing Baden may walk this very day, and feel from the invaders in every point of habit thoroughly at home-understand every and character. The Germans went among word spoken, and realize that he is among a race of Germans, avowedly Germans, brethren; in the same way a Franconian and glorying in their German culture from the Palatinate into the Franconian and descent. It is an utter mistake to districts. Stoeber, the most representasuppose that because the Alsatians are tive spokesman in the world of letters French in sentiment, and because their whom the Alsatians have ever had, grew townspeople now reply to leading ques-indignant when a doubt was cast upon the tions as is desired, "Je suis Alsacien," German descent of the Alsatians. In and country folk bid the regulation greet- heart, no doubt, he affirmed, we are ing, drilled into them, "Bon jour"-in French, "but in mind, in culture, in dethe majority of cases the one little crumb scent, we are as thoroughly German." of French which they are masters of Nor is this all. Even politically there that therefore their German origin is to be was a German thread to take up, which called in question, or is distasteful to had only been dropped. Politically, the themselves. "I bin Dietsch" is what Alsatians had been very staunch and dethey say. Up to 1870, at any rate, they voted Germans, as long as the empire would have no "Welsch" innovations. gave them protection. It was not their Thoroughly German Goethe found them fault that they became French. They in 1770. "Purely German," German in struggled hard enough against their fate. "manners, language, ideas, prejudices, When Monclar threatened Strassburg, and habits," Arthur Young says that he they urgently begged the emperor to send found them in 1788. On a short visit regular troops to support their little garwhich I paid to Strassburg in 1861, I could rison of two hundred and fifty citizen quite realize what those two earlier visitors soldiers and one officer. But the emperor must have seen there. For below the thin confessed himself powerless. Even then, stratum of officialism, which was of course though their bishop, Prince Fuerstenberg, completely French, everything seemed to servilely welcomed the invading king, me German in the Alsatian city. German, Louis XIV.—as bishops will sometimes tenaciously German, the French found do-with a blasphemous "Nunc Dimittheir fellow-subjects as late as 1870. Had tis," the king, in view of the German not they been subjected to a lavish outpouring of ridicule and contempt, on that very score, from the days when Voltaire, living among them, styled them "Iroquois and "Hottentots," down to the period of annexation, when they were spoken of in Paris commiseratingly as ces pauvres gens qui ne parlent que l'Allemand?" As recently as 1870 the French government was remonstrated with and urged to "sacrifier une génération, et franciser, à tout prix, le plus vite possible." Alsace has been French one hundred and eighty-nine years, Lorraine practically longer. And yet, I am told, the two areas, in which not only German but distinct German dialects are spoken, are materially the same that they were three hundred years ago. What was sympathies clearly manifested by the townspeople, declared himself "très mal satisfait de la ville." Strassburg continued on his black books on account of this for some time; and Schlettstadt, to name but one other instance, offended its French masters terribly by its stubborn Germanism. Here surely were materials ready to the workman's hand, out of which to form, in course of time, a hearty reunion! Twenty years have gone by, not a very short space of time. One ought to be able to observe now, at any rate, the beginnings of results. Yet it is but too plain, from what one does see on the spot, that thus far very little has been accomplished. Some mutual approach, no doubt, has been made. People cannot live side by side for twenty years, rub shoulders daily, buy and sell, take part in the same business and the same amusements, without learning to endure one another and to be civil, and in some sense mutually accommodating. | Even in the Nile, it is said, people find it politic to be on terms with the alligator. The Alsatians are friendly and civil with those with whom they are daily brought together; but their civility is, even at the The Alsatians and Lorrains, more es- present day, still only skin-deep. Many a pecially in their " 'pays admirable, mais wistful glance is cast across the border. placé malheureusement entre le marteau French papers are read, French politics de la France et l'enclume de l'Allemagne," talked. The French franc and sou conhave had ample opportunities of learning tinue to hold their own in local reckoning to adapt themselves to new surroundings, against the German mark and pfennigif it be but, as one of their own mottoes to the serious inconvenience of travellers puts it, to "endurer pour durer." Any - for French values have to be paid in person who has read M. About's rather German coin. Walk into a shop, and in highly colored " Alsace," and goes into nine cases out of ten you might fancy the country expecting to witness such yourself in France. Place yourself in a scenes as are there described, will find position to be taken for a spy-as I himself seriously disappointed. Trades- unwittingly did, jotting down notes in a men and waiters do not decline to serve secluded spot, selected for its shadeGerman customers. They do not offen- and you will find yourself guarded and sively look at those customers' feet, which warned by volunteer scouts "Il y a des M. About supposes to be preternaturally postes ici, il y a des postes Allemands." large. Alsatian ladies do not ingeniously This was said with a stealthiness and sly arrange their draperies so as to exhibit significance which plainly spoke of pracdemonstratively the forbidden tricolor. tice as well as sympathy. Look at the Alsatian lads do not pass along the street population after any little international shouting the Marseillaise. Woe to them incident," such as a frontier squabble, if they did! And as for the German sol- and you will at once discover on which diers tabooed, as M. About will have it, side are their sympathies. I saw them like very lepers why, go to any foire excited over the unexpected encounter of or kilbe you like the Alsatian calendar two companies of rifles, one French, the teems with them and you will be sure other German, on the frontier, upon the to see Alsatian beauty smiling upon Ger- mountains. Εσσεται ήμαρ was quite eviman valor with a very pretty resignation dently in their minds-irritated by the indeed, and more than content to be performance, with truly Prussian tact, of whirled about on its sturdy arm. And the "Watch on the Rhine " and "Ich bin this even in M. About's own dear Sa- ein Preusse," by the regimental bands in verne, "pauvre petite ville très française." their streets. And then there is the fête It would be very extraordinary woman- nationale. I happened to be near the hood indeed which for twenty years to- frontier on July 14th. In fact, I crossed gether could forego such innocent worship over, like a good many others, but not for of Mars, merely because the only soldiers the same purpose, and partook of the hosavailable happened to be Prussians. pitality of a miserable cafétier who, right Prussians may be bad, all bad, like the on the border, had made broad his triLerians of old, but yet a Prussian on the color. Fellow-travellers that day told me spot is for flirting purposes any day worth with glee that they, although annexed Gertwo Frenchmen at a distance. So the mans, had crossed likewise, and if it were Alsatian nymphs for the time put their only to pull out their flasks, and take a patriotism in their pocket, and flirt and hearty draught of "kirsch "on French soil dance as Goethe describes their dancing to the welfare of the republic-something -"from nine in the morning till midnight at any rate they must do to betoken their or later," until, as he says of himself, "my attachment. Evidently the Alsatians trust whole I' seemed lost in the dance." in France still, notwithstanding her defeats on their own battlefields. And evi But all this, most evidently, means little. dently under a yoke which wrings their | by which, when once estranged, provinces withers, they have not given up hoping can be reclaimed for Germany. for relief from the West. Their part of the world has seen so many changes, the wheel has gone round so often, that it seems not unreasonable to expect that it may go round once more. "We do not suffer ourselves to be deceived," one very civil-spoken official told me. "In tongue our neighbors are German, in heart we know them to be thoroughly French." There is the less excuse for this, since the French before them bad fallen into no such error, but had in many respects set them a capital example. It is the fashion in Germany to disparage everything that is done by France, more especially in Alsace. But in Alsace the French have evidently succeeded vastly better than the Germans - hitherto. Their conduct is matter of history. They found the The question naturally suggesting it local population decidedly unfriendly and self is: What has kept them so? That unwilling to be made French. But they after twenty years of government-con- did not on that account withdraw from scientious, painstaking government, evi- them political rights, and treat them as a dently intended to be good Germans subjugated people. It is true, they perseruling over Germans should have no bet- cuted the Protestants most inexcusably. ter results to show, must be surprising And hence the rather large emigration of indeed to an impartial observer. The the time, which would have been larger Germans do not pretend to hold Alsace by still had it been allowed free course. But so highly responsible a tenure as that by even on this matter Louis XIV., autocrat which not long ago Mr. Gladstone ex- that he was, permitted himself to be replained us to be holding India - namely, monstrated with not without effect - by the understanding that our rule should be the town councils-who would find it for the benefit of the governed. Emperor | difficult at the present day to act as chamWilliam took Alsace because he wanted pions of their nation against the German the strong frontier. Of course he was authorities. But that was practically the quite within his right in doing so. He only mistake the French made. The one was entitled to safeguard his dominions thing which was needful, to turn these re against fresh attacks - such as those for luctant Germans into willing Frenchmen, which Alsace, itself wrongfully captured, even the ministers of Bourbon kings readhad been only too often used as a conven- ily understood. "In one important reient sallyport. Even so, he has not recov- spect," says Professor Freeman, “France ered nearly all the territory which France has much less to answer for than other had at various times, generally without a conquering States. A province conquered good pretext, taken from his country. by France has always been really incorpoFrankfort has not nearly made up for rated into France; no French conquests "Nimm weg, ,""Reiss weg," and the other have ever been kept in the condition of German capitulations. The emperor's subject dependencies; their inhabitants conquest was purely military and prima- have at once been admitted to the rights rily selfish. But the Germans went into and wrongs, the good and evil fortunes of Alsace avowedly_as kinsmen coming Frenchmen, and they have had every caamong kinsmen. They scolded the Alsa- reer offered by the French monarchy at tians for flying in the face of nature, and once opened to them. Here is the secret being so French. They prevented all that of French success. Against the enlightthey could from leaving the country, by ened measures of Colbert, which laid the objecting to "options." They made foundation of Alsatian industrial prosper. promises of good government. By all ity, against the wise concessions made for this they incurred obligations of some the rehabilitation of destroyed agriculture, sort, to govern their new subjects, not against the beneficial reforms in the ad. only with justice, but with something like ministration of law and government, the kindness. They have unquestionably en- Germans may have to set their own useful deavored to benefit the province in some measures of to-day, though these do not way. They have striven zealously to de- as yet in their effects go nearly the same velop its material resources for which, length. Against the free admission of the after the losses brought on by the war, subject Alsatians to citizen rights, to there was, unfortunately, but too much equality with those who were made their room. But the general result shows as fellow-subjects, to trust and a hearty welits details show - that they have failed come, against the one great measure which to grasp the true nature of the task laid knitted their hearts to those of France, upon them, and to understand the spirit they have nothing, absolutely nothing, to show. I am not drawing a picture from im- But let us see how the Germans in their agination. You may read a long catalogue turn dealt with their conquered provinces of the good effects of French rule in the not in the hour of conquest, but during history of the German Alsatian, Strobel. the first twenty years of their rule. They Lorenz and Scherer, likewise Germans, came into Alsace as into a transatlantic "Where was there another govern- colony, not only with their own armysay: ment which heaped similar benefits upon that was but natural but with their own a nation? It was as if a new world had foreign principles of government, their opened to the Alsatians' view." Of own staff of administrators, judges, everycourse, governing on such principles, the thing. They took possession completely, French were not driven to rely exclusively as an occupying alien force. It seemed upon their own alien officers. They found as if the foreign hook was to be thrust those most useful of allies, natives, to help firmly into the Alsatian nose, and that them in their work. Where is an Urich Alsace-impoverished as it was at the Obrecht now, or a Klinglin? Where is time-was to be exploited for the benefit an Alsatian "praetor" of Strassburg? of those lawyers and civil servants, those The benefits conferred by the monarchy were followed up by the Revolution, which was felt to be "glorious nowhere so much as in Alsace. With what absorbing spirit and enthusiasm the Alsatians threw themselves into that movement - that we may judge from the eloquent writings of Erckmann-Chatrian. The Place des Vosges in Paris, so christened in 1800 in honor of the Alsatians, on the ground that they had made sacrifices beyond any other province for the cause of French independence and freedom, still remains a memorial to their devotion of that day. The Revolution has proved the great connecting link, joining Alsace firmly to France. The Napoleonic era, with its brilliant train of victories, succeeded; and, as a matter of course, the race of born soldiers, among whom "every village produced its general," were carried away by the martial fever. This formed one more link, though nothing like the one established by the Revolution. But the decisive step was taken before, when France opened her arms freely to Alsace, put aside questions of distrust, renounced her right of conquest, and frankly invited the Alsatians to become French. It was the best course which they could have adopted. Alsace German, resisting, obstinate, as at first she was became French as she was bidden. And she learned to find that under French rule she was accorded liberties which under the two-headed eagle she could never have dreamt of, and which made her proudlyGerman writers admit that-look down upon her neighbors further eastward, who enjoyed no such privileges. To relinquish such a position as this, to go down into a state of bondage like the present-let us hope that it is only temporary is like plunging from Italian sunshine into a November fog. It is no wonder that it chilled Alsatian hearts. landraths and police officers, for whom no berths could be found at home. Germans like the "reichsland" as a garrison, and there were plenty of applications for appointments. My rather minute inquiries brought me into contact with a considerable number of the administrative staff. Most courteous and obliging I found those gentlemen, without exception; more able, and sincerely bent upon serving the country well within their respective prov. inces. But never a single Alsatian have I come across in any of the higher berths. The German emperor has recently been made to hold out a prospect of some Alsatians being employed. Well, that is something. But the concession comes a trifle late, and it goes a very short way. It serves the purpose of showing to what extent foreign administration has up to the end of twenty years been pushed. The Alsatians are allowed, so to speak, no interest in their own country. They are permitted to eat, drink, trade, and pay taxes, for the benefit of a foreign governing staff forced upon them. But that is practically all. It is true that they have some sort of popular representation. And see how they use it! The statistical returns published by authority show that at elections for the imperial Parliament, where the handful of Alsatian deputies have no power save to protest, the province returns what we should call Nationalists by overwhelming majorities. At elections for inferior bodies, whose political power is nil, there are large and growing abstentions. Apart from that, Alsatians are laid under all sorts of disqualifications, and prohibitions, and bans. They may -indeed, they must - serve in the German army, but not with any sense of satisfaction. Anything calculated to create an esprit de corps or to fire them with an enthusiasm not strange to them anything that could make them feel the glory of military life, so dear to Alsatians is ab- | into the use of French at home, for the solutely tabooed. The conscripts are benefit of their children. And it makes drafted away into German regiments, people even of small means send placed as units practically under supervi- their daughters to school in France sion of their comrades, admitted to noth- their sons they must not send, or they ing but the drudgery of service, and would- at an expense which they resent permitted no distinction save that of as a tax. So, instead of Germanizing the supplementing the-to them-insuffi- population, the provision actually Frenchcient rations by regular supplies from ifies them. The French governmenthome. Alsatians must not allow their which would have had some excuse for children to learn French, nor send their such a measure proceeded on very dif sons to school out of the country, where ferent lines. It never prohibited German. they might learn it. They are placed under It was told by the priests that it must not. restrictions in their movements, under M. About makes out that that was because stringent provisions as to passports. the priest did not wish their congregations These provisions work with excessive to read Voltaire. That is nonsense. Volharshness and are, as a matter of course, taire was probably never in their thoughts. resented very keenly. That is really but In Roman Catholic countries the Roman one item in a perfect apparatus of distrust- clergy may be accepted as very safe ful supervision which, to a stranger, is guides to the popular mind. They cannot perfectly appalling. One appears, on en- ensconce themselves behind their freehold tering the country, to be moving into an livings and snap their fingers at the popu. atmosphere of palpable suspicion lace. They must keep in touch and symvéritable épidemie de soupçon," Grad pathy with it. In Alsace they knew that calls it. And Grad, though a French to advise differently, to allow themselves sympathizer, is allowed to have been a to be made to preach and teach in French, fair-minded man. There is distrust every- would lose them all the hold which they where. It seems scarcely credible that, had on their flocks. Hence their advice, on being referred by a departmental chief, which was against French, under a French for information on a particular cottage- government. Now, under a German, they industry, to a large manufacturer, I was are in favor of French on the same at the same time carefully cautioned: principle-which shows how the wind "But you must not be seen going into has shifted. that man's house. For he is known as a To the conscription for the German army French sympathizer, and to be seen with the Alsatians have not even yet become him would get you into trouble." Even a reconciled. No wonder. While they safe conduct from this all-but-minister-of-must look for that sympathy from neigh. state would not protect me! On such bors which is a necessary to human be principles is Alsace governed. The re-ings, but which they do not meet with sult is what might have been expected. une But I ought to say just one word about the hardships just alluded to. They are acutely felt even in thoroughly German quarters, where the authorities would scarcely look for a sense of grievance. I know, because people have told me themselves, and not in one case only. The prohibition of the use of the French language at school seems as ridiculous in policy as it is harsh in application. French is necessary in Alsace. The Germans admit that, by sending by preference officials into the province who are masters of French. The Alsatians are aware that in Germany proper there is no such limitation on instruction. "We are actually worse off than they are in Germany, in respect of what is to us half a native tongue." The prohibition altogether defeats its object because it positively drives people, whom their inclination would otherwise prompt to speak German, among Germans, to France, that is no |