In the Heart of the Vosges
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Matilda Betham Edwards >> In the Heart of the Vosges
IV
FROM BARR TO STRASBURG, MULHOUSE AND BELFORT
The opening sentences of this chapter, written many years ago, are no
longer applicable. Were I to revisit Alsace-Lorraine at the present time,
I should only hear French speech among intimate friends and in private,
so strictly of late years has the law of lèse-majesté been, and is still,
enforced.
Nothing strikes the sojourner in Alsace-Lorraine more forcibly than the
outspokenness of its inhabitants regarding Prussian rule. Young and old,
rich and poor, wise and simple alike unburden themselves to their
chance-made English acquaintance with a candour that is at the same time
amusing and pathetic. For the most part no heed whatever is paid to
possible German listeners. At the ordinaries of country hotels, by the
shop door, in the railway carriage, Alsatians will pour out their
hearts, especially the women, who, as two pretty sisters assured us, are
not interfered with, be their conversation of the most treasonable kind.
We travelled with these two charming girls from Barr to Rothau, and they
corroborated what we had already heard at Barr and other places. The
Prussian inhabitants of Alsace-Lorraine--for the most part Government
officials--are completely shut off from all social intercourse with the
French population, the latter, of course, still forming the vast
majority. Thus at Barr, a town consisting of over six thousand
inhabitants, only a score or two are Prussians, who are employed in the
railway and postal service, the police, the survey of forests, etc. The
position of these officials is far from agreeable, although, on the
other hand, there is compensation in the shape of higher pay, and much
more material comfort, even luxury, than are to be had in the
Fatherland. Alsace-Lorraine, especially by comparison with Prussia, may
be called a land of Goshen, overflowing with milk and honey. The vine
ripens on these warm hill-sides and rocky terraces, the plain produces
abundant variety of fruit and vegetables, the streams abound with trout
and the forests with game. No wonder, therefore, that whilst thousands
of patriotic Alsatians have already quitted the country, thousands of
Prussians are ready to fill their places. But the Alsatian exodus is far
from finished. At first, as was only natural, the inhabitants could not
realize the annexation. They refused to believe that the Prussian
occupation was final, so, for the most part, stayed on, hoping against
hope. The time of illusion is past. French parents of children born
since the war had to decide whether their sons are to become Prussian or
French citizens. After the age of sixteen a lad's fate is no longer in
their hands; he must don the uniform so odious in French eyes, and
renounce the cherished _patrie_ and _tricolor_ for ever.
The enforced military service, necessitated, perhaps, by the new order of
things, is the bitterest drop in the cup of the Alsatians. Only the
poorest, and those who are too much hampered by circumstances to evade
it, resign themselves to the enrolment of their sons in the German army.
For this reason well-to-do parents, and even many in the humbler ranks of
life, are quitting the country in much larger numbers than is taken
account of, whilst all who can possibly afford it send their young sons
across the frontier for the purpose of giving them a French education.
The prohibition of French in the public schools and colleges is another
grievous condition of annexation. Alsatians of all ranks are therefore
under the necessity of providing private masters for their children,
unless they would let them grow up in ignorance of their mother tongue.
And here a word of explanation may be necessary. Let no strangers in
Alsace take it for granted that because a great part of the rural
population speak a _patois_ made up of bad German and equally bad
French, they are any more German at heart for all that. Some of the most
patriotic French inhabitants of Alsace can only express themselves in
this dialect, a fact that should not surprise us, seeing the amalgamation
of races that has been going on for many generations.
Physically speaking, so far the result has been satisfactory. In
Alsace-Lorraine no one can help being struck with the fine appearance of
the people. The men are tall, handsome, and well made, the women
graceful and often exceedingly lovely, French piquancy and symmetrical
proportions combined with Teutonic fairness of complexion, blonde hair,
and blue eyes.
I will now continue my journey from Barr to Strasburg by way of the Ban
de la Roche, Oberlin's country. A railway connects Barr with Rothau, a
very pleasant halting-place in the midst of sweet pastoral scenery. It is
another of those resorts in Alsace whither holiday folks flock from
Strasburg and other towns during the long vacation, in quest of health,
recreation and society.
Rothau is a very prosperous little town, with large factories, handsome
châteaux of mill-owners, and trim little cottages, having flowers in all
the windows and a trellised vine in every garden. Pomegranates and
oleanders are in full bloom here and there, and the general aspect is
bright and cheerful. At Rothau are several _blanchisseries_ or
laundries, on a large scale, employing many hands, besides dye-works and
saw-mills. Through the town runs the little river Bruche, and the whole
district, known as the Ban de la Roche, a hundred years ago one of the
dreariest regions in France, is now all smiling fertility. The principal
building is its handsome Protestant church--for here we are among
Protestants, although of a less zealous temper than their fore-fathers,
the fervid Anabaptists. I attended morning service, and although an
eloquent preacher from Paris officiated, the audience was small, and the
general impression that of coldness and want of animation.
From the sweet, fragrant valley of Rothau a road winds amid green hills
and by the tumbling river to the little old-world village of Foudai,
where Oberlin lies buried. The tiny church and shady churchyard lie above
the village, and a more out-of-the-way spot than Foudai itself can hardly
be imagined. Yet many a pious pilgrim finds it out and comes hither to
pay a tribute to the memory of "Papa Oberlin," as he was artlessly
called by the country folk. This is the inscription at the head of the
plain stone slab marking his resting-place; and very suggestive it is of
the relation between the pastor and his flock. Oberlin's career of sixty
years among the primitive people of the Ban de la Roche was rather that
of a missionary among an uncivilized race than of a country priest among
his parishioners. How he toiled, and how he induced others to toil, in
order to raise the material as well as moral and spiritual conditions of
his charges, is pretty well known. His story reads like the German
narrative, _Des Goldmachers Dorf_. Nor does it require any lively
fancy to picture what this region must have been like before Oberlin and
his fellow-workers made the wilderness to blossom as the rose. The soil
is rocky and barren, the hill-sides whitened with mountain streams, the
more fertile spots isolated and difficult of access. An elaborate system
of irrigation has now clothed the valleys with rich pastures, the river
turns a dozen wheels, and every available inch of soil has been turned to
account. The cottages with orchards and flower-gardens are trim and
comfortable. The place in verity is a veritable little Arcadia. No less
so is Waldersbach, which was Oberlin's home. The little river winding
amid hayfields and fruit-trees leads us thither from Foudai in
half-an-hour. It is Sunday afternoon, and a fête day. Young and old in
Sunday garb are keeping holiday, the lads and lasses waltzing, the
children enjoying swings and peep-shows. No acerbity has lingered among
these descendants of the austere parishioners of Oberlin. Here, as at
Foudai, the entire population is Protestant. The church and parsonage
lie at the back of the village, and we were warmly welcomed by the
pastor and his wife, a great-great-granddaughter of Oberlin. Their six
pretty children were playing in the garden with two young girls in the
costume of Alsace, forming a pleasant domestic picture. Our hosts
showed us many relics of Oberlin, the handsome cabinets and presses of
carved oak, in which were stored the family wardrobe and other
treasures, and in the study the table on which he habitually wrote.
This is a charming upper room with wide views over the green hills and
sunny, peaceful valley.
We were offered hospitality for days, nay, weeks, if we chose to stay,
and even the use of Oberlin's study to sit and write in! A summer might
be pleasantly spent here, with quiet mornings in this cheerful chamber,
full of pious memories, and in the afternoon long rambles with the
children over the peaceful hills. From Foudai, too, you may climb the
wild rocky plateau known as the Champ de Feu--no spot in the Vosges chain
is more interesting from a geological point of view.
After much pleasant talk we took leave of our kind hosts, not going away,
however, without visiting the church. A tablet with medallion portrait of
Oberlin bears the touching inscription that for fifty-nine years he was
"the father of this parish." Then we drove back as we had come, stopping
at Foudai to rest the horse and drink tea. We were served in a cool
little parlour opening on to a garden, and, so tempting looked the tiny
inn that we regretted we could not stay there a week. A pleasant pastoral
country rather than romantic or picturesque is the Ban de la Roche, but
close at hand is the lofty Donon, which may be climbed from Rothau or
Foudai, and there are many other excursions within reach.
Here, for the present, the romance of Alsace travel ends, and all is
prose of a somewhat painful kind. The first object that attracted our
attention on reaching Strasburg was the new railway station, of which we
had already heard so much. This handsome structure, erected by the German
Government at an enormous cost, had only been recently opened, and so
great was the soreness of feeling excited by certain allegorical
bas-reliefs decorating the façade that for many days after the opening
of the station police-officers in plain clothes carefully watched the
crowd of spectators, carrying off the more seditious to prison. To say
the least of it, these mural decorations are not in the best of taste,
and at any rate it would have been better to have withheld them for a
time. The two small bas-reliefs in question bear respectively the
inscription, "_Im alten, und im neuen Reich_" ("In the old and new
Empire"), improved by a stander-by, to the great relish of others, thus,
"_Im alten, reich, im neuen, arm_" ("In the old, rich, in the new,
poor"). They give a somewhat ideal representation of the surrender of
Strasburg to the German Emperor. But the bombardment of their city, the
destruction of public monuments and the loss of life and property
thereby occasioned, were as yet fresh in the memories of the
inhabitants, and they needed no such reminder of the new state of
things. Their better feelings towards Germany had been bombarded out of
them, as an Alsacienne wittily observed to the Duchess of Baden after
the surrender. The duchess, daughter to the Emperor William, made the
round of the hospitals, and not a single Alsatian soldier but turned his
face to the wall, whereupon she expressed her astonishment at not
finding a better sentiment. Nor can the lover of art help drawing a
painful contrast between the Strasburg of the old and the new _régime_.
There was very little to see at Strasburg except the cathedral at this
time. The Library, with its 300,000 volumes and 1,500 manuscripts--the
priceless _Hortus Deliciarium_ of the twelfth century, richly
illuminated and ornamented with miniatures invaluable to the student of
men and manners of the Middle Ages, the missal of Louis XII., bearing
his arms, the _Recueil de Prières_ of the eighth century--all these had
been completely destroyed by the ruthless Prussian bombardment. The
Museum, rich in _chefs d'oeuvre_ of the French school, both of sculpture
and painting, the handsome Protestant church, the theatre, the Palais de
Justice, all shared the same fate, not to speak of buildings of lesser
importance, including four hundred private dwellings, and of the fifteen
hundred civilians, men, women and children, killed and wounded by the
shells. The fine church of St. Thomas suffered greatly. Nor was the
cathedral spared, and it would doubtless have perished altogether, too,
but for the enforced surrender of the heroic city. On my second visit
ten years later I found immense changes, new German architecture to be
seen everywhere.
Strasburg is said to contain a much larger German element than any other
city of Alsace-Lorraine, but the most casual observer soon finds out how
it stands with the bulk of the people. The first thing that attracted our
notice in a shop window was a coloured illustration representing the
funeral procession of Gambetta, as it wound slowly past the veiled statue
of Strasburg on the Place de la Concorde. These displays of patriotic
feeling are forbidden, but they come to the fore all the same. Here, as
elsewhere, the clinging to the old country is pathetically--sometimes
comically--apparent. A rough peasant girl, employed as chambermaid in the
hotel at which we stayed, amused me not a little by her tirades against
the Prussians, spoken in a language that was neither German nor French,
but a mixture of both--the delectable tongue of Alsace!
Strasburg is now a vast camp, with that perpetual noisy military parade
so wearisome in Berlin and other German cities, and, as I have said,
there was very little to see. It was a relief to get to Mulhouse, the
comparatively quiet and thoroughly French city of Mulhouse, in spite of
all attempts to make it German. But for the imperial eagle placed over
public offices and the sprinkling of Prussian helmets and Prussian
physiognomies, we could hardly suppose ourselves outside the French
border. The shops are French. French is the language of the better
classes, and French and Jews make up the bulk of the population. The Jews
from time immemorial have swarmed in Alsace, where, I am sorry to say,
they seemed to be little liked.
This thoroughly French appearance of Mulhouse, to be accounted for,
moreover, by an intensely patriotic clinging to the mother country,
naturally occasions great vexation to the German authorities. It is,
perhaps, hardly to be wondered at that undignified provocations and
reprisals should be the consequence. Thus the law forbids the putting up
of French signboards or names over shop doors in any but the German
language. This is evaded by withholding all else except the surname of
the individual, which is of course the same in both languages.
One instance more I give of the small annoyances to which the French
residents of Mulhouse are subject, a trifling one, yet sufficient to
irritate. Eight months after the annexation, orders were sent round to
the pastors and clergy generally to offer up prayers for the Emperor
William every Sunday. The order was obeyed, for refusal would have been
assuredly followed by dismissal, but the prayer is ungraciously
performed. The French pastors invoke the blessing of Heaven on
"_l'Empereur qui nous gouverne_". The pastors who perform the
service in German, pray not for "our Emperor," as is the apparently loyal
fashion in the Fatherland, but for "the Emperor." These things are
trifling grievances, but, on the other hand, the Prussians have theirs
also. Not even the officials of highest rank are received into any kind
of society whatever. Mulhouse possesses a charming zoological garden,
free to subscribers only, who have to be balloted for. Twenty years after
the annexation not a single Prussian has ever been able to obtain access
to this garden.
Even the very poorest contrive to show their intense patriotism. It is
the rule of the German government to give twenty-five marks to any poor
woman giving birth to twins. The wife of a French workman during my
sojourn at Mulhouse had three sons at a birth, but though in very poor
circumstances, refused to claim the donation. "My sons shall never be
Prussian," she said, "and that gift would make them so."
The real thorn in the flesh of the annexed Alsatians is, however, as I
have before pointed out, military service, and the enforced German
education. All who have read Alphonse Daudet's charming little story,
_La dernière leçon de Français_, will be able to realize the
painfulness of the truth, somewhat rudely brought home to French parents.
Their children must henceforth receive a German education, or none at
all, for this is what the law amounts to in the great majority of cases.
Rich people, of course, and those who are only well-to-do, can send their
sons to the Lycée, opened at Belfort since the annexation, but the rest
have to submit, or, by dint of great sacrifice, obtain private French
teaching. And, whilst even Alsatians are quite ready to render justice to
the forbearance and tact often shown by officials, an inquisitorial and
prying system is pursued, as vexatious to the patriotic as enforced
vaccination to the Peculiar People or school attendance to the poor. One
lady was visited at seven o'clock in the morning by the functionary
charged with the unpleasant mission of finding out where her boy was
educated. "Tell those who sent you," said the indignant mother, "that my
son shall never belong to you. We will give up our home, our prospects,
everything; but our children shall never be Prussians." True enough, the
family have since emigrated. No one who has not stayed in Alsace among
Alsatians can realize the intense clinging to France among the people,
nor the sacrifices made to retain their nationality. And it is well the
true state of feeling throughout the annexed territory should be known
outside its limits. With a considerable knowledge of French life and
character, I confess I went to Mulhouse little prepared to find there a
ferment of feeling which years have not sufficed to calm down.
[Illustration: ETTENHEIM]
"Nous ne sommes pas heureux à Mulhouse" were almost the first words
addressed to me by that veteran patriot and true philanthropist, Jean
Dollfus.
And how could it be otherwise? M. Dollfus, as well as other
representatives of the French subjects of Prussia in the Reichstag, had
protested against the annexation of Alsace in vain. They pointed out the
heavy cost to the German empire of these provinces, in consequence of the
vast military force required to maintain them, the undying bitterness
aroused, the moral, intellectual, and material interests at stake. I use
the word intellectual advisedly, for, amongst other instances in point, I
was assured that the book trade in Mulhouse had greatly declined since
the annexation. The student class has diminished, many reading people
have gone, and those who remain feel too uncertain about the future to
accumulate libraries. Moreover, the ordeal that all have gone through has
depressed intellectual as well as social life. Mulhouse has been too much
saddened to recover herself as yet, although eminently a literary place,
and a sociable one in the old happy French days. The balls, soirées and
reunions, that formerly made Mulhouse one of the friendliest as well as
the busiest towns in the world, have almost ceased. People take their
pleasures very soberly.
It is hardly possible to write of Mulhouse without consecrating a page
or two to M. Jean Dollfus, a name already familiar to some English
readers. The career of such a man forms part of contemporary history,
and for sixty years the great cotton-printer of Mulhouse, the
indefatigable philanthropist--the fellow-worker with Cobden,
Arles-Dufour, and others in the cause of Free Trade--and the ardent
patriot, had been before the world.
The year before my visit was celebrated, with a splendour that would be
ridiculed in a novel, the diamond wedding of the head of the numerous
house of Dollfus, the silver and the golden having been already kept in
due form.
Mulhouse might well be proud of such a fête, for it was unique, and the
first gala-day since the annexation. When M. Dollfus looked out of his
window in the morning, he found the familiar street transformed as if by
magic into a bright green avenue abundantly adorned with flowers. The
change had been effected in the night by means of young fir-trees
transplanted from the forest. The day was kept as a general holiday.
From an early hour the improvised avenue was thronged with visitors of
all ranks bearing cards, letters of congratulation or flowers. The great
Dollfus works were closed, and the five thousand workmen with their
wives, children and superannuated parents, were not only feasted but
enriched. After the banquet every man, woman and child received a present
in money, the oldest and those who had remained longest in the employ of
M. Dollfus being presented with forty francs. But the crowning sight of
the day was the board spread for the Dollfus family and the gathering of
the clan, as it may indeed be called. There was the head of the house,
firm as a rock still, in spite of his eighty-two years; beside him the
partner of sixty of those years, his devoted wife; next according to age,
their numerous sons and daughters, sons-in-law and daughters-in-law; duly
following came the grandsons and grand-daughters, then the
great-grandsons and great-granddaughters, and lastly, the babies of their
fifth generation, all accompanied by their nurses in the picturesque
costume of Alsace and Lorraine. This patriarchal assemblage numbered
between one and two hundred guests. On the table were represented, in the
artistic confectionery for which Mulhouse is famous, some of the leading
events of M. Dollfus's busy life. Here in sugar was a model of the
achievement which will ever do honour to the name of Jean Dollfus,
namely, the _cités ouvrières_, and what was no less a triumph of the
confectioner's skill, a group representing the romantic ride of M. and
Mme. Dollfus on camels towards the Algerian Sahara when visiting the
African colony some twenty years before.
This patriarchal festival is said to have cost M. Dollfus half a million
of francs, a bagatelle in a career devoted to giving! The bare conception
of what this good man has bestowed takes one's breath away! Not that he
was alone; never was a city more prolific of generous men than Mulhouse,
but Jean Dollfus, _"Le Père Jean,"_ as he is called, stood at the
head. He received with one hand to bestow with the other, and not only on
behalf of the national, intellectual and spiritual wants of his own
workmen and his own community--the Dollfus family are Protestant--but
indiscriminately benefiting Protestant, Catholic, Jew; founding schools,
hospitals, libraries, refuges, churches, for all.
We see at a glance after what fashion the great manufacturers set to work
here to solve the problem before them. The life of ease and the life of
toil are seen side by side, and all the brighter influences of the one
brought to bear on the other. The tall factory chimneys are unsightly
here as elsewhere, and nothing can be uglier than the steam tramways,
noisily running through the streets. But close to the factories and
workshops are the cheerful villas and gardens of their owners, whilst
near at hand the workmen's dwellings offer an exterior equally
attractive. These _cités ouvrières_ form indeed a suburb in
themselves, and a very pleasant suburb too. Many middle-class families in
England might be glad to own such a home, a semi-detached cottage or
villa standing in a pretty garden with flowers and trees and plots of
turf. Some of the cottages are models of trimness and taste, others of
course are less well kept, a few have a neglected appearance. The general
aspect, however, is one of thrift and prosperity, and it must be borne in
mind that each dwelling and plot of ground are the property of the owner,
gradually acquired by him out of his earnings, thanks to the initiative
of M. Dollfus and his fellow-workers. "It is by such means as these that
we have combated Socialism," said M. Dollfus to me; and the gradual
transformation of the workman into an owner of property, is but one of
the numerous efforts made at Mulhouse to lighten, in so far as is
practicable, the burden of toil.
These pleasant avenues are very animated on Sundays, especially when a
universal christening of babies is going on. The workmen at Mulhouse are
paid once a fortnight, in some cases monthly, and it is usually after
pay-day that such celebrations occur. We saw one Sunday afternoon quite
a procession of carriages returning from the church to the _cité
ouvrière_, for upon these occasions nobody goes on foot. There were
certainly a dozen christening parties, all well dressed, and the babies
in the finest white muslin and embroidery. A very large proportion of the
artisans here are Catholics, and as one instance among others of the
liberality prevailing here, I mention that one of the latest donations of
M. Dollfus is the piece of ground, close to the _cité ouvrière_, on
which now stands the new, florid Catholic church.