CHAPTER XXI. IN GERMANISED ALSACE.

Who would quit Alsace without a pilgrimage to Saverne and the country home in which Edmond About wrote his most delightful pages and in which he dispensed such princely hospitality? The author of "Le Fellah " was forced to forsake his beloved retreat after the events of 1870- 1; the experiences of this awful time are given in his volume "Alsace," and dedicated to his son - pour qu'il se souvienne - in order that he might remember. Here also as under that Lorraine roof I felt myself in France. At the time of my visit the property was for sale. French people, however, are loth to purchase estates in the country they may be said to inhabit on sufferance, while rich Germans prefer to build palatial villas within the triple fortifications and thirteen newly constructed forts which are supposed to render Strasburg impregnable.

The railway takes us from Strasburg in an hour to the picturesque old town of Saverne, beautifully placed above the Zorn. Turning our backs upon the one long street winding upwards to the chateau, we follow a road leading into the farthermost recesses of the valley, from which rise on either side the wooded spurs of the lower Vosges. Here in a natural cul-de-sac, wedged in between pine-clad slopes, is as delightful a retreat as genius or a literary worker could desire. On the superb September day of my visit the place looked its best, and warm was the welcome we received from the occupiers, a cultivated and distinguished French Protestant family, formerly living at Srasburg, but since the events of 1870-1 removed to Nancy. They hired this beautiful place from year to year, merely spending a few weeks here during the Long Vacation. The intellectual atmosphere still recalled bygone days, when Edmond About used to gather round him literary brethren, alike French and foreign. Pleasant it was to find here English-speaking, England-loving, French people. Nothing can be simpler than the house itself, in spite of its somewhat pretentious tower of which About wrote so fondly. His study is a small, low- pitched room, not too well lighted, but having a lovely outlook; beyond, the long, narrow gardens, fruit, flower and vegetable, one leading out of another, rising pine woods and the lofty peaks of the Vosges. So remote is this spot that wild deer venture into the gardens, whilst squirrels make themselves at home close to the house doors. Our host gave me much information about the peasants. Although not nearly so prosperous as before the annexation, they are doing fairly well. Some, indeed, are well off, possessing capital to the amount of several thousand pounds, whilst a millionaire, that is, the possessor of a million francs or forty thousand pounds, is found here and there. The severance from France entailed, however, one enormous loss on the farmer. This was the withdrawal of tobacco culture, a monopoly of the French State which afforded maximum profits to the cultivator. With regard to the indebtedness of the peasant-owner, my informant said that it certainly existed, but not to any great extent, usury having been prohibited by the local Reichstag a few years before. Again I found myself among French surroundings, French traditions, French speech. Let me add, however, that I heard none of the passionate regrets, recriminations, and wishes that had constantly fallen on my ears ten years before. One prayer, and one only, seems in every heart, on every lip, "Peace, peace - only let us have peace!" It must be borne in mind that 20,000 French Alsatians quitted Strasburg alone, and that those of the better classes who were unable to emigrate sent their young sons across the frontier before the age of seventeen. Thus, by a gradual process, the French element is being eliminated from the towns, whilst in the country annexation came in a very different guise.

This will be seen from the account of another excursion made with French friends living in Strasburg.

It is a beautiful drive to Blaesheim, southwest of the city, in a direct line with the Vosges and Oberlin's country. We pass the enormous public slaughterhouses and interminable lines of brand-new barracks, then under one of the twelve stone gates with double portals that now protect the city, leaving behind us the tremendous earthworks and powder magazines, and are soon in the open plain. This vast plain is fertile and well cultivated. On either side we see narrow, ribbon- like strips of maize, potatoes, clover, hops, beetroot, and hemp. There are no apparent boundaries of the various properties and no trees or houses to break the uniformity. The farm-houses and premises, as in the Pyrenees, are grouped together, forming the prettiest, neatest villages imaginable. Entzheim is one of these. The broad, clean street, the large white-washed timber houses, with projecting porches and roofs, may stand for a type of the Alsatian "Dorf." The houses are white-washed outside once a year, the mahogany-coloured rafters, placed crosswise, forming effective ornamentation. No manure heaps before the door are seen here, as in Brittany, all is clean and sightly. We meet numbers of pedestrians, the women mostly wearing the Alsatian head-dress, an enormous bow of broad black ribbon with long ends, worn fan-like on the head, and lending an air of great severity. The remainder of the costume - short blue or red skirt (the colours distinguishing Protestant and Catholic), gay kerchief, and apron - have all but vanished. As we approach our destination the outlines of the Vosges become more distinct, and the plain is broken by sloping vineyards and fir woods. We see no labourers afield, and, with one exception, no cattle. It is strange how often cattle are cooped up in pastoral regions. The farming here is on the old plan, and milch cows are stabled from January to December, only being taken out to water. Agricultural machinery and new methods are penetrating these villages at a snail's pace. The division of property is excessive. There are no lease-holds, and every farmer, alike on a small or large scale, is an owner.

Two classes in Alsace have been partly won over to the German rule; one is that of the Protestant clergy, the other that of the peasants.

The Third Empire persistently snubbed its Protestant subjects, then, as at the time of the Revocation, numbering many most distinguished citizens. No attempts, moreover, were made to Gallicise the German-speaking population of the Rhine provinces. Thus the wrench was much less felt here than in Catholic, French-speaking Lorraine. Higher stipends, good dwelling-houses and schools, have done much to soften annexation to the clergy. An afternoon "at home" in a country parsonage a few miles from Strasburg, reminded me of similar functions in an English rectory.

At the parsonage of Blaesheim we were warmly welcomed by friends, and in their pretty garden found a group of ladies and gentlemen playing at croquet, among them two nice-looking girls wearing the Alsatian coiffe that enormous construction of black ribbon just mentioned. These young ladies were daughters of the village mayor, a rich peasant, and had been educated in Switzerland, speaking French correctly and fluently. Many daughters of wealthy peasants marry civilians at Strasburg, when they for once and for all cast off the last feature of traditional costume. After a little chat, and being bidden to return to tea in half an hour, we visited some other old acquaintances of my friends, a worthy peasant family residing close by. Here also a surprise was in store for me. The head of the house and his wife - both far advanced in the sixties and who might have walked out of one of Erckman-Chatrian's novels - could not speak a word of French, although throughout the best part of their lives they had been French subjects!

Admirable types they were, but by no means given to sentiment or romance. The good man assured me in his quaint patois that he did not mind whether he was French, German, or, for the matter of that, English, so long as he could get along comfortably and peacefully! He added, however, that under the former regime taxes had been much lower and farming much more profitable. The good folk brought out bread and wine, and we toasted each other in right hearty fashion. Over the sideboard of their clean, well-furnished sitting room hung a small photograph of William II. On our return to our first host we found a sumptuous five o'clock tea prepared for the ladies, whilst more solid refreshments awaited the gentlemen in the garden.

Even in a remote corner of Alsace, memorialized by Germany's greatest poet, we find pathetic clinging to France.

Everyone has read the story of Goethe and Frederika, how the great poet, then a student at the Strasburg University, was taken by a comrade to the simple parsonage of Sesenheim, how the artless daughter of the house with her sweet Alsatian songs, enchanted the brilliant youth, how he found himself, as he tells us in his autobiography, suddenly in the immortal family of the Vicar of Wakefield. "And here comes Moses too!" cried Goethe, as Frederika's brother appeared. That accidental visit has in turn immortalised Sesenheim. The place breathes of Frederika. It has become a shrine dedicated to pure, girlish love.

A new line of railway takes us from Strasburg in about an hour over the flat, monotonous stretch of country, so slowly crossed by diligence in Goethe's time. The appearance of the city from this side - the French side - is truly awful: we see fortification after fortification, with vast powder magazines at intervals, on the outer earthworks bristling rows of cannon, beyond, several of the thirteen forts constructed since the war. The bright greenery of the turf covering these earthworks does not detract from their dreadful appearance. Past the vast workshops and stores of the railway station - a small town in itself - past market gardens, hop gardens, hayfields, beech-woods, all drenched with a week of rain, past old-world villages, the railway runs to Sesenheim, alongside the high road familiar to Goethe. We alight at the neat, clean, trim station (in the matter of cleanliness the new regime bears the palm over the old), and take the flooded road to the village. An old, bent, wrinkled peasant woman, speaking French, directs us for full information about Frederique - thus is the name written in French - to the auberge. First, with no little interest and pride, she unhooks from her own wall a framed picture, containing portraits of Goethe, and Frederika, and drawings of church and parsonage as they were. The former has been restored and the latter wholly rebuilt.

As we make our way to the little inn over against these, we pass a new handsome communal school in course of erection. On questioning two children in French, they shake their heads and pass on. The thought naturally arises - did the various French Governments, throughout the period of a hundred and odd years ending in 1870, do much in the way of assimilating the German population of Alsace?

It would not seem so, seeing that up till the Franco-Prussian war the country folk retained their German speech, or at least patois. Under the present rule only German is taught in communal schools, and in the gymnasiums or lycees, two hours a week only being allowed for the teaching of French. At the Auberge du Bouf, over against the church and parsonage, we chat with the master in French about Goethe and Frederika; his womankind, however, only spoke patois. Here, nevertheless, we find French hearts, French sympathies, and occasionally French gaiety.

Unidyllic, yet full of instruction, is the drive in the opposite direction to Kehl. We are here approaching friendly frontiers, yet the aspect is hardly less dreadful. True that cannon do not bristle on the outer line of the triple fortifications; otherwise the state of things is similar. We see lines of vast powder magazines, enormous barracks of recent construction, preparations for defence, on a scale altogether inconceivable and indescribable. Little wonder that meat is a shilling a pound, instead of fourpence as before the annexation, that bread has doubled in price, taxation also, and, to make matters worse, that trade has remained persistently dull!

A tremendous triple-arched, stone gate, guarded by sentinels, has been erected on this side of the lower Rhine, over against the Duchy of Baden. No sooner are we through than our hearts are rejoiced with signs of peace and innocent enjoyment, restaurants and coffee gardens, family groups resting under the trees. Beyond, flowing briskly amid wooded banks to right and left, is the Rhine, a glorious sight, compensating for so many that have just given us the heartache.

Of Strasburg I will say little. Full descriptions of the new city, for such an expression is no figure of speech, are given in the English, French, and German guide books. The first care of the German Government after coming into possession was to repair the havoc caused by the bombardment, the rebuilding of public buildings, monuments and streets that had been partially or entirely destroyed in 1871. Among these were the Museum and Public Library, the Protestant church, several orphanages and hospitals, lastly, incredible as it may seem, the beautiful octagonal tower of the Cathedral. The incidents of this vandalism have just been graphically described in the new volume of the brothers' Margueritte prose epic, dealing with the Franco-Prussian War, entitled "Les Braves Gens."

I remember writing on the occasion of my first visit to Strasburg, a few years after these events - "There is very little to see at Strasburg now. The Library with its priceless treasures of books and manuscripts, the Museum of painting and sculpture, rich in chefs d'oeuvre of the French school, the handsome Protestant church, the theatre, the Palais de Justice, were all completely destroyed by the Prussian bombardment, not to speak of buildings of lesser importance, four hundred private dwellings, and hundreds of civilians killed and wounded by the shells. Nor was the cathedral spared, and would doubtless have perished altogether also but for the enforced surrender of the heroic city."

Since that sad time a new Strasburg has sprung up, of which the University is the central feature. A thousand students now frequent this great school of learning, the professorial staff numbering a hundred. One noteworthy point is the excessive cheapness of a learned or scientific education. Autocratic Prussia emulates democratic France. I was assured by an Alsatian who had graduated here that a year's fees need not exceed ten pounds! Students board and lodge themselves outside the University, and, of course, as economically as they please. They consist chiefly of Germans, for sons of French parents of the middle and upper ranks are sent over the frontier before the age of seventeen in order to evade the German military service. They thus exile themselves for ever. This cruel severance of family ties is, as I have said, one of the saddest effects of annexation. Without and within, the group of buildings forming the University is of great splendour. Alike architecture and decoration are on a costly scale; the vast corridors with tesselated marble floors, marble columns, domes covered with frescoes, statuary, stained glass, and gilded panels, must impress the mind of the poorer students. Less agreeable is the reflection of the taxpayer. This new Imperial quarter represents millions of marks, whilst the defences of Strasburg alone represent many millions more. One of the five facultes is devoted to Natural Science. The Museum of Natural History, the mineralogical collections, and the chemical laboratories have each their separate building, whilst at the extreme end of the University gardens is the handsome new observatory, with covered way leading to the equally handsome residence of the astronomer in charge. Thus the learned star-gazer can reach his telescope under cover in wintry weather. In addition to the University library described above, the various class-rooms have each small separate libraries, sections of history, literature, etc., on which the students can immediately lay their hands. All the buildings are heated with gas or water.

Just beyond these precincts we come upon a striking contrast - row after row of brand-new barracks, military bakeries, foundries, and stores; piles of cannon balls, powder magazines, war material, one would think, sufficient to blow up all Europe. Incongruous indeed is this juxtaposition of a noble seat of learning and militarism only commensurate with barbaric times. A good way off is the School of Medicine. This, indeed, owes little or nothing to the new regime, having been founded by the French Government long before 1870. It is a vast group of buildings, one of which can only be glanced at with a shudder. My friend pointed out to me an annexe or "vivisection department." Here, as he expressed it, is maintained quite a menagerie of unhappy animals destined for the tortures of the vivisector's knife. The very thought sickened me, and I was glad to give up sight- seeing and drop in for half-an-hour's chat with a charming old lady, French to the backbone, living under the mighty shadow of the Cathedral. She entertained me with her experiences during the bombardment, when cooped up with a hundred persons, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, all passing fifteen days in a dark, damp cellar. Many horrible stories she related, but somehow they seemed less horrible than the thought of tame, timid, and even affectionate and intelligent creatures, slowly and deliberately tortured to death, for the sake, forsooth, of what? Of this corporeal frame man himself has done his best to vitiate and dishonour, mere clayey envelope - so theologians tell us - of an immortal soul!

Strasburg, like Metz, is one vast camp, at the time of this second visit the forty thousand soldiers in garrison here were away for the manoeuvres. In another week or two the town would swarm with them.

I will now say a few words about the administration of the annexed provinces, a subject on which exists much misapprehension.

As I have explained, no liberty, as we understand it, exists for the French subjects of the German Emperor, neither freedom of speech, nor of the press, nor of public meeting are enjoyed in Alsace and the portion of Lorraine no longer French. A rigorous censorship of books as well as newspapers is carried on. Even religious worship is under perpetual surveillance. One by one French pastors and priests are supplanted by their German brethren. A much respected pastor of Mulhouse, long resident in that city and ardently French, told me some years ago that he expected to be the last of his countrymen permitted to officiate. Police officers wearing plain clothes attend the churches in which French is still permitted on Sunday. There is nothing that can be called representative or real parliamentary government. The Stadtholder or Governor is in reality a dictator armed with autocratic powers. He can, at a moment's notice, expel citizens, or stop newspapers. As to administration, it rests in the hands of the State Secretariat or body of Ministers, three in number. There is a pretence at home rule, but one fact suffices to explain its character and working. Of the thirty members forming the local Reichstag, sitting at Strasburg, fifteen are always named by the Stadtholder himself. This little Chamber of Deputies deliberates upon provincial affairs, all Bills having to pass the Chamber at Berlin and receive the Imperial sanction before becoming law. As to the party of protest in the Reichstag itself, formerly headed by the late Jean Dollfuss, I was assured that it had ceased to exist. Years before, then burdened with the weight of care and years, the great patriot of Mulhouse had said to me, "I no longer take my seat at Berlin. Of what good?" And were he living still, that great and good man, burning as was his patriotism, inextinguishable as was his love for France, would doubtless echo the words I now heard on every lip, "Peace, peace; only let us have peace!"

Whilst at Strasburg German has crowded out French, at Mulhouse I found French still universally spoken. The prohibition of native speech in schools is not only a domestic but a commercial grievance. As extensive business relations exist between the two countries, especially near the frontier, a knowledge of both French and German is really necessary to all classes. Even tourists in Alsace-Lorraine nowadays fare badly without some smattering of the latter language. Hotel-keepers especially look to the winning side, and do their very utmost to Germanise their establishments. Shopkeepers must live, and find it not only advantageous but necessary to follow the same course. Sad indeed is the spectacle of Germanised France! Nemesis here faces us in militarism, crushing the people with taxation and profoundly shocking the best instincts of humanity.

In conclusion I must do justice to the extreme courtesy of German railway and other officials. Many employes of railways and post offices - all, be it remembered, Government officials - do not speak any French at all, especially in out-of-the-way places. At the same time, all officials, down to the rural postman, will do their very best to help out French-speaking strangers with their own scant vocabulary of French words.

My Alsatian hosts, one and all, I found quite ready to do justice to the authorities and their representatives, but, as I have insisted upon before, an insuperable barrier, the fathomless gulf created by injustice, exists between conquerors and conquered. And only last year dining with my hosts of Germanised Lorraine in Paris, I asked them if in this respect matters had changed for the better. The answer I received was categoric - "Nothing is changed since your visit to us. French and Germans remain apart as before."

"East of Paris" has led me somewhat farther than I intended, but to a lover of France, no less than to a French heart, France beyond the Vosges is France still!

THE END.