It is especially an artistic Alsace that M. Hallays reveals to us. Instead of visiting battlefields, he shows us that English travellers may find ample interest of other kind. The artist, the ecclesiologist, the art-loving have here a storehouse of unrevealed treasure. A little-read but weighty writer, Mme. de Staël, has truly averred that the most beautiful lands in the world, if devoid of famous memories and if bearing no impress of great events, cannot be compared in interest to historic regions. Hardly a spot of the annexed provinces but is stamped with indelible and, alas! blood-stained, records. From the tenth century until the peace of Westphalia, these territories belonged to the German empire, being ruled by sovereign dukes and princes. In 1648 portions of both provinces were ceded to France, and a few years later, in times of peace, Strasburg was ruthlessly seized and appropriated by the arch-despot and militarist, Louis XIV. By the treaty of Ryswick, that of Westphalia was ratified, and thenceforward Alsace and Lorraine remained radically and passionately French. In 1871 was witnessed an awful historic retribution, a political crime paralleling its predecessor committed by the French king two centuries before. Alsace-Lorraine still awaits the fulfilment of her destiny. Meantime, as Rachel mourning for her children, she weeps sore and will not be comforted.
Historically speaking, therefore, the annexed provinces present a strangely complex patchwork and oft-repeated palimpsest, civilization after civilization overlapping each other. If Alsace-Lorraine has produced no Titan either in literature or art, she yet shows a goodly roll-call.
The name heading the list stands for France herself. It was a young soldier of Strasburg--not, however, Alsatian born--who, in April, 1792, composed a song that saved France from the fate of Poland and changed the current of civilization. By an irony of destiny the Tricolour no longer waves over the cradle of the Marseillaise!
That witty writer, Edmond About, as well as the "Heavenly Twins" of Alsatian fiction, was born in Lorraine, but all three so thoroughly identified themselves with this province that they must be regarded as her sons. Those travellers who, like myself, have visited Edmond About's woodland retreat in Saverne can understand the bitterness with which he penned his volume--_Alsace 1870-1_--and the concluding lines of the preface--