conditions that nothing remains to be done but to register it and proceed to enjoy its logical consequences.

A few hold that before conditions of peace are established a plebiscite must voice the preference of Alsace-Lorraine. It would be easy to show that a plebiscite would have no appeal to the Government or to public opinion in Germany. Both have declared that the wishes of Alsatians and Lorrainers matter little, and that it is enough that German public opinion considers the annexed country indispensable to German interest and to German security. We could show just as easily the material impossibility of proceeding to an open and general referendum while the French Army or the German Army was occupying the country; while a part of the voters could fear reprisals at the hands of the conquerors; while the majority of the electors were still under arms and in camps on both sides of the combat; while an enormous proportion of those dispossessed in 1870 were in the foreign lands to which they fled; or while there remained in Alsace-Lorraine a large number of Germans who have no right to speak out on the legitimacy or injustice of an act that occurred before they arrived, no right to express themselves in the name of a country or race that is not theirs and never has been theirs.

Do not believe that if we Frenchmen feel like this it is because we have anything to fear from the verdict of AlsaceLorraine, or doubt the fidelity of her people. After a half-century of oppression and persecution, after losing by emigration several hundred thousand inhabitants, after witnessing her invasion by as many undesirable foreigners, Alsace-Lorraine has remained French at heart. All who visited her before the Great War have testified to this, and we are so sure of her that after her return to the mother country we shall immediately give her absolutely free elections. That will be no very meritorious act of faith on our part. For Alsace-Lorraine expressed her sentiments many times before the war. Whenever she was obliged to pronounce between France and Germany, she replied without hesitation, "I want to be French."

The real plebiscite? Here it is, and

it is the more convincing because it was produced in the past under the heavy oppression of the tyrant. It must be made known to our friends of America. They must realize its conditions and decisive character. This is not discussion

it is history. We bid our hearts be silent and let facts speak. Listen to what the Deputies of Alsace-Lorraine said to the Parliament of France at the moment of annexation, listen to what they said later to the Parliament of Germany. Examine their attitude through nearly fifty years of foreign domination. On this testimony, friends of liberty, pronounce your judg ment!

The armistice signed at Versailles, January 29, 1871, after six months of war (and they found it too long!) stipulated the rapid convocation of an assembly that should decide on peace or war. Under conditions of full liberty the election took place at Paris on February 5th, and in the rest of France on February 8th, even in the departments occupied by the German Army. Among the latter were the departments of Alsace and Lorraine, and already German newspapers were declaring that their cession was the first condition of peace. Alsatians and Lorrainers voted then with full knowledge of the case and on a question clearly posed. Differing among themselves in their opinions on other subjects, the men they elected experienced no difficulty in coming to an agreement on the question of allegiance, and on February 17th, before the preliminaries of peace were signed, this unanimous declaration was read in their name by Deputy Keller before the National Assembly:

We, the undersigned, French citizens, chosen by the departments of the Lower-Rhine, of the Upper-Rhine, of Moselle and of Meurthe, to bring to the National Assembly of France the expression of the unanimous will of the populations of Alsace and of Lorraine, after having met and deliberated, have resolved to expose, in a solemn declaration, their sacred and inviolable rights, in order that the National Assembly, France and Europe, having under their eyes the vows and the resolutions of our constituents, may not consummate nor allow to be consummated any act of a nature to imperil the rights which a firm mandate has confided to us to guard and defend.

DECLARATION

1. Alsace and Lorraine do not wish to be alienated from France. Associated for more than two centuries with France, in good fortune and in bad, these two provinces, ceaselessly exposed to the blows of the enemy, have constantly sacrificed themselves to national greatness; they have sealed with their blood the indissoluble pact which attaches them to the French unity. Threatened to-day by foreign pretensions, they affirm in the midst of obstacles and dangers, under the very yoke of the invader, their fidelity.

All unanimously, citizens who remained in their homes as well as the soldiers who hastened to take their places under the flag, some by voting, others by fighting, have signified to Germany and to the world the unchangeable will of Alsace and of Lorraine to remain French.

The second point of the declaration urged that France did not have the right to sign the cession of AlsaceLorraine, and the third, that civilized nations could neither permit it nor ratify it under pain of becoming in their turn victims of the attempts that they had tolerated. With a clairvoyance which

events have justified only too well, the Deputies added:

Modern Europe cannot allow a people to be seized like a flock of sheep; she cannot be deaf to the repeated protests of threatened populations; she owes it to her own conserva

tion to forbid such an abuse of force. She knows, moreover, that the unity of France is to-day, as in the past, a guarantee of general order in the world, a barrier against the spirit of conquest and invasion.

Peace made at the price of a cession of territory would only be a ruinous truce and not a definite peace. It would be for all concerned a cause of intestinal agitation, a legitimate and permanent provocation to war.

We take our fellow-citizens of France, and the governments and peoples of the whole world, to witness that we consider in advance as null and void all acts and treaties, votes and plebiscites, that consent to the abandonment to the foreigner of all or a part of our provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

We proclaim by these presents forever inviolable the right of Alsatians and Lorrainers to remain members of the French nation; and we swear as much for ourselves as for our constituents, our children and their descendants, to avenge it eternally and in every manner against all usurpers.

The National Assembly heard this eloquent declaration with a sympathy that was unanimous; but a few days afterward, March 17th, when the time came to decide upon the acceptance or the rejection of the preliminaries of a peace which ceded to the enemy the half of Lorraine and all of Alsace excepting Belfort, five hundred and forty-six Deputies against a hundred and seven. consented, with death in their souls, to the sacrifice that had to be. What could the elected representatives of the ceded departments do against necessity? They signed a protest, read in their name, and immediately afterward left the Assembly in poignant silence. The text of this protest has passed into history. More than ever in the present hour we must proclaim it before the conscience of humanity:

Before any peace negotiations, the representatives of Alsace and Lorraine placed before the National Assembly a declaration affirming in the name of these provinces their will and their right to remain French. In spite of all justice and by an odious.

abuse of force, we have a last duty to perform before we are delivered over to foreign domination.

Once again we declare null and void a pact which disposes of us without our consent.

The vindication of our rights rests forever open to us and to every one, in the form and in the measure that our conscience will dictate.

Now as we leave this place where our dignity does not permit us longer to remain, and in spite of the bitterness of our sorrow, the supreme thought that we find in the bottom of our hearts is gratitude to those who for six months have defended us and unchangeable affection to the Motherland from which we are violently torn away.

We shall follow you with our good wishes and we shall wait with complete confidence in the future until regenerated France takes again the course of her great destiny.

Your brothers of Alsace and of Lorraine, separated now from the common family, will preserve for France, far away from their homes, a filial affection until the day when she will come back to take her place there.

The fidelity so solemnly proclaimed was to manifest itself from this day

forth, not by words, but by acts that were still more eloquent. Alsace-Lorraine, although encircled by a silence full of dignity, did not neglect any occasion to show her real sentiments. The first vote that took place after the annexation, that of July 30, 1871, had as its object the renewal of the Municipal Councils. This election took place without noise and without enthusiasm, even without profession of faith; but it nominated none the less mayors that were patriots. Those of the four largest cities, Strasbourg, Metz, Colmar, and Mulhouse, were men well known for their love of France. A second election took place June 22, 1873, this time for the Conseils-Généraux and for the Conseils d'Arrondissements. Although they excited no interest and the number of absentees was much greater than the voters, the result was such that when the men elected were asked to pledge their allegiance to the Emperor, the majority refused.

The movement to which has been attached the name Exode is more signifi

cant than these elections. The Treaty of Frankfort had stipulated for the inhabitants of the annexed territories the liberty to emigrate before October 1, 1872, if they did not want to be Germans. Sad alternative-submission to a citizenship imposed by force, or abandonment of their possessions, their friends, their family, the land of their birth. Many who were not among the least courageous or the least enlightened, in order to conserve intact the culture of the Motherland, the hope of deliverance and of better days, chose to live on the soil that had been violated by the enemy. Thus the Bishop of Metz, Monseigneur Dupont des Loges, enjoined upon his priests to remain at their posts with their sorely tried parishioners. But many others could not resign themselves to daily contact with their conquerors, and, above all, to the idea that their sons would one day be liable to mobilization in the German Army and obliged to fight against France. Driven by this thought, some sixty thousand persons left the country. Metz, which had