East of Paris - Matilda Betham-Edwards (english readers .TXT) 📗

their rank and position counted for something. But one country girl had to pay duty on a shilling box of writing paper, another was mulcted to half the value of a bottle of scent, and so on. There was something really pathetic in the forced display of these trifles, the purchasers being working people and peasants. All French goods and productions are exorbitantly taxed. Thus a lady must pay three or four shillings duty on a bonnet perhaps costing twenty in France. On a cask of wine, the duty often exceeds the price of its contents, and, according to an inexorable law of human nature, the more inaccessible are these patriotic luxuries, so the more persistently will they be coveted and indulged in.

Custom House officials on the Prussian side have no easy time of it, ladies especially giving them no little trouble. The duty on a new dress sent or brought from France across the frontier is ten francs; and we were told an amusing story of a French lady, who thought to neatly circumvent the douane. She was going from Nancy to Strasburg to a wedding, and in the ladies' waiting-room on the French side changed her dress, putting on the new, a rich costume bought for the ceremony. The officials got wind of the matter. The dress was seized and finally redeemed after damages of a thousand francs!

Persons in indifferent circumstances, however patriotic they may be, can subsist upon German beer, soap, and writing paper. The blood tax, upon which I shall say something further on, is a wholly different matter.

A short drive brought us to a noble chateau, inside a beautifully wooded park, the iron gateway showing armorial bearings. Indoors there was nothing to remind me that I had exchanged Republican France for autocratic Prussia. Guests, servants, speech, usages, books, were French, or, in the case of the three latter, English. Every member of the family spoke English, afternoon tea was served as at home, and the latest Tauchnitz volumes lay on the table.

Difficult indeed it seemed to realise that I had crossed the frontier, that though within easy reach, almost in sight of it, the miss, alas! Was as good as a mile.

Alsace-Lorraine, I may here mention, is a verbal annexation dating from 1871. Whilst Alsace was German until its conquest by Louis XIV., Lorraine, the country of Jeanne d'Arc, had been in part French and French-speaking for centuries. Alsace under French _regime_ retained alike Protestantism and Teutonic speech. We can easily understand that the changes of 1871 should come much harder to the Catholic Lorrainers than to their Protestant Alsatian neighbours.

Bitterness of feeling does not seem to me to diminish with time. On the occasion of my third visit to Germanised France, I found things much the same, the clinging to France ineradicable as ever, nothing like the faintest sign of reconciliation with Imperial rule.

One might suppose that, after a generation, some slight approach to intercourse would exist among the French and Prussian populations. By the upper classes the Germans, no matter what their rank or position, remain tabooed as were Jews in the Ghetto of former days.

At luncheon next day, my host smilingly informed me that he had filled up the paper left by the commissary of police, concerning their newly arrived English visitor. We are here, it must be remembered, in a perpetual state of siege.

"I put down Canterbury as your birthplace--" he began.

"Good Heavens!" exclaimed I, "I was born near Ipswich."

"Oh!" he said, smiling, "I just put down the first name that occurred to me, and filled in particulars as to age, etc.," here he bowed, "after a fashion which I felt would be satisfactory to yourself."

This kind of domiciliary visit may appear a joking matter, but to live under a state of siege is no subject for pleasantry, as I shall show further on. Here is another instance of the comic side of annexation, if the adjective could be applied to such a subject. In the salon I noticed a sofa cushion, covered, as I thought to my astonishment, with the Prussian flag. But my hostess smilingly informed me that, as the Tricolour was forbidden in Germanised Lorraine, by way of having the next best thing to it, she had used the Russian colours, symbol of the new ally of France.

Another vexation of unfortunate _annexes_ is in the matter of bookbinding. French people naturally like to have their books bound in French style, but it is next to impossible to get this done in Alsace. If the books are bound in France, there is the extra cost of carriage and duty.

A very pleasant time I had under this French roof on German soil. Our days were spent in walks and drives, our evenings entertained with music and declamation. Now we had the Kreutzer Sonata exquisitely performed by amateur musicians, now we listened to selections from Lamartine, Nadaud, Victor Hugo and others, as admirably rendered by a member of this accomplished family, all the members of which were now gathered together. I saw something alike of their poorer and richer neighbours, all of course being their country-people. This social circle, including the household staff, was rigorously French.

Let me now describe a Lorraine lunch, as the French _gouter_ or afternoon collation is universally called, our hosts being a family of peasant farmers, their guests the house party from the chateau. We had only to drive a mile or two before quitting annexed France for France proper, the respective frontiers indicated by tall posts bearing the name and eagle of the German Empire and the R.F. of France.

"You are now on French soil," said my host to me with a smile of satisfaction, and the very horses seemed to realise the welcome fact. Right merrily they trotted along, joyfully sniffing the air of home.

The Lorraine villages are very unlike their spick and span neighbours of Alsace, visited by me two years before. Why Catholic villages should be dirty and Protestant ones clean, I will not attempt to explain. Such, however, is the case. As we drove through the line of dung-heaps and liquid manure rising above what looked like barns, I was ill-prepared for the comfort and tidiness prevailing within. What a change when the door opened, and our neatly dressed entertainers ushered us into their dining-room! Here, looking on to a well-kept garden was a table spread with spotless linen, covers being laid as in a middle-class house. An armchair, invariable token of respect, was placed for the English visitor; then we sat down to table, two blue- bloused men, uncle and nephew, and three elderly women in mob caps and grey print gowns, dispensing hospitality to their guests, belonging to the _noblesse_ of Lorraine. There was no show of subservience on the one part, or of condescension on the other. Conversation flowed easily and gaily as at the chateau itself.

I here add that whilst the French _noblesse_ and _bourgeoisie_ remain apart as before the Revolution, with the peasant folk it is not so. These good people were not tenants or in any way dependents on my hosts. They were simply humble friends, the great tie being that of nationality. The order of the feast was peculiar. Being Friday no delicacy in the shape of a raised game pie could be offered; we were, therefore, first of all served with bread and butter and _vin ordinaire_. Then a dish of fresh honey in the comb was brought out; next, a huge open plum tart. When the tart had disappeared, cakes of various kinds and a bottle of good Bordeaux were served; finally, grapes, peaches, and pears with choice liqueurs. Healths were drunk, glasses chinked, and when at last the long lunch came to an end, we visited dairy, bedrooms, and garden, all patterns of neatness. This family of small peasant owners is typical of the very best rural population in France. The united capital of the group--uncle, aunts and nephew--would not perhaps exceed a few thousand pounds, but the land descending from generation to generation had increased in value owing to improved cultivation. Hops form the most important crop hereabouts. This village of French Lorraine testified to the educational liberality of the Republic. For the three hundred and odd souls the Government here provides schoolmaster, schoolmistress, and a second female teacher for the infant school, their salaries being double those paid under the Empire.

Now a word concerning the blood-tax. Rich and well-to-do French residents in the annexed provinces can afford to send their sons across the frontier and pay the heavy fines imposed for default. With the artisan and peasant the case is otherwise. Here defection from military service means not only lifelong separation but worldly ruin. To the wealthy an occasional sight of their young soldiers in France is an easy matter. A poor man must stay at home. If his sons quit Alsace-Lorraine in order to go through their military service on French soil, they cannot return until they have attained their forty- fifth year, and the penalty of default is so high that it means, and is intended to mean, ruin. There is also another crying evil of the system. French conscripts forced into the German Army are always sent as far as possible from home. If they fall ill and die, kith or kin can seldom reach them. Again, as French is persistently spoken in the home, and German only learnt under protest at the primary school, the young _annexe_ enters upon his enforced military service with an imperfect knowledge of the latter language, the hardships of his position being thereby immensely enhanced. No one here hinted to me of any especial severity being shown to French conscripts on this account, but we can easily understand the disadvantage under which they labour. I visited a tenant farmer on the other side of the frontier, whose only son had lately died in hospital at Berlin. The poor father was telegraphed for but arrived too late, the blow saddening for ever an honest and laborious life. This farmer was well- to-do, but had other children. How then could he pay the fine imposed upon the defaulter? And, of course, French service involved lifelong separation. Cruel, indeed, is the dilemma of the unfortunate _annexe_. But the blood-tax is felt in other ways. During my third stay in Germanised Lorraine the autumn manoeuvres were taking place. This means that alike rich and poor are compelled to lodge and cook for as many soldiers as the authorities choose to impose upon them. I was assured by a resident that poor people often bid the worn-out men to their humble board, the conscripts' fare being regulated according to the strictest economy. In rich houses, German officers receive similar hospitality, but we can easily understand under what conditions.

The annexed provinces are of course being Germanised by force. Immigration continues at a heavy cost. Here is an instance in point.

When Alsace was handed over to the German Government it boasted of absolute solvency. It is now burdened with debt, owing, among many other reasons, to the high salaries received by the more important German officials; the explanation of this being that the position of these functionaries is so unpleasant they have to be bribed into such expatriation. Thus their salaries are double what they were under French rule. Not that friction often occurs between the German civil authorities and French subjects; everyone bears witness to the politeness of the former, but it is impossible for them not to feel the distastefulness of their own presence. On the other hand, the perpetual state of siege is a grievance daily felt. Free speech, liberty of the press, rights of public meeting, are unknown. Not long since, a