thwarted by the passive resistance of the Second Chamber, our constitution, which the Germans characterize as democratic, provides that if Parliament refuses to vote the budget, the government has the right to incur expenditure based on the figures of the preceding budget. The Germans have wished to emphasize as a great concession to the claims of Alsace-Lorraine the fact that in the last constitution given to Reichsland they have been given a voice in the Bundesrat (Federal Council). This Bundesrat is composed of the representatives of the Chief of the States of the Empire. It is this council that with the consent of the Reichstag, which is the representative of the German people, gave universal suffrage and that makes the laws for the Empire. Now, owing to the importance of territory and number of inhabitants, Alsace-Lorraine ought to hold sixth rank among the States of the Empire. She has been given three votes in the Council. But, as it is the Staatshalter (Vice-King) of Alsace-Lorraine who gives the instructions as to how those three votes will be cast, and as the Vice-King is an office-holder subject to recall by the Emperor who is the King of Prussia, there is no danger that those votes will ever operate against Prussia. This dependence on Prussia of the votes of Alsace-Lorraine has been disingenuously marked by a special provision inserted on this occasion in the constitution of the Empire, in which it is said that every time a favourable majority vote for Prussia cannot be polled in the Bundesrat except with the help of the Alsatian vote, those votes will not be counted. Up to this day Alsace-Lorraine has never ceased to be governed by a legislation outside of the common right. Today even, an act is pending in Berlin which provides exceptional measures for the suppression of journals printed in French.

All the efforts of the Germans, the special legislation for Alsace-Lorraine, the activities of the functionaries, chiefly Germans brought from the four corners of the Empire, even the administration of justice, have had the tendency to exterminate and replace by the Deutschtum (German culture) the spirit and the sentiments of the French people.

All this effort and labour were doomed to failure. The Alsatians remained faithful to their ideals and to the policy expressed in their protest. Of course the form of this protest has changed with the current of events. The simple negation which marked the solemn protests of Bordeaux in 1871 and of Berlin in 1874 could not after the lapse of time, and should not now, determine the conduct of the people. The first necessity is to continue to exist, and there were finally organized political parties which fought passionately, as happens in every country in the world. But towards the Germans the real Alsatians were as one man as soon as some particular occasion presented itself, to show their aversion to the Herrenvolk (the dominant people), as it pleased the Germans to call themselves. The demand of self-government for Alsace-Lorraine within the limits of the German Empire was only one way of showing the desire to be distinguished as much as possible from the Germans. It was the maximum that the Alsatians could legally require but the minimum of her real claim which always demanded the absolute return to France, the mother country.

A very suggestive fact on this subject is that, in the electoral struggles between the natives, the different parties did not hesitate to mutually reproach each other with the desire to lean on the will or the influence of Germany.

The first demonstration against the Germans was the exodus of a part of the population. The annual emigration continued until the War of 1914. Another sign of protest was the considerable number of refractaires (defaulting conscripts) who up to that day had annually left the country by the hundreds to avoid German military service. Their property was seized and they never could return to the country. The greater number entered the Foreign Legion to fight for France.

The French language continued to be spoken in the family, notwithstanding all the governmental precautions to insure its disuse. Families continued to send their children to France to learn French, young girls particularly being placed in French boarding schools to complete their instruction and education. Up to that time commercial books had been published in French; bookkeeping was done in francs, even in those houses where the circumstances made it necessary to use the German language simultaneously. The condemnation of seditious utterances and the wearing of seditious emblems were no longer noticed and never ceased. The public has specially marked the case of conspicuous persons who have been implicated in prosecutions (the Samain brothers, Hausi and Zislin, the caricaturists, the Abbé Wétterlie), but alongside of these cases, thousands of obscure soldiers of the Alsace-Lorraine cause, victims of their attachment to France, have paid their tribute to their country. For shouting "Vive la France!", for singing of the Marseillaise, for showing a tri-colour ribbon, innumerable sentences, in some cases running into years of imprisonment, have been pronounced. When, in 1887, the situation in France, under the influence of the Boulanger movement, disclosed the possibility of a conflict at arms with Germany, the election of the Reichstag for that year resulted in sending to Berlin a protesting deputation, notwithstanding the tremendous governmental pressure put upon the electors. That was the signal for increased persecutions in Alsace-Lorraine. Student societies, singing classes, athletic associations, people suspected of cultivating French sympathies, newspapers showing French tendencies, all of these were suppressed and the members of the League of Patriots were betrayed and condemned for high treason. Bismarck introduced the régime of passports to cut off all relations between Alsace-Lorraine and France. The Statthalter of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst, at that moment governor of Alsace-Lorraine, has said in his Mémoires that he had the impression that Bismarck wished to drive the population to insurrection. This plan fell through, thanks to the wisdom of the people who knew how to resist such a provocation. The result was simply to strengthen French patriotism. The rising generation which had gone through the German schools and German army fooled the German statesmen who had counted on them for the assimilation of German Kultur. On the contrary, these young people were most ardent in manifesting their devotion to France. Better prepared for the struggle than their elders, knowing the German language perfectly, familiarized by their studies with the Teuton dialects, they became most formidable adversaries. My comrade in combat, Jacques Preiss, killed during this war, a victim of German persecutions, has very well described the character and rôle of the youth in a discourse given in the Reichstag in 1894. He said: "We young fellows, we are not of the generation of 1870 whom choice and emigration have deprived of elements which are the firmest and most unresisting. If you do not introduce a more liberal régime, you will find by experience that this new generation is much more energetically opposed to fusion than has been the case since 1870."

In fact, not only has Germanization made no progress, but the Alsatians become each day more impatient of the German yoke. The two populations, the native and immigrant, have never had social intercourse. The native societies or