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ALSACE 
 
 THROUGHOUT THE AGES 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES EUGENE RUDOLPH KAEPPELIN 
 
 Physicist — Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur 
 Decorated for Bravery 
 
 Done into English by 
 
 MARY LOUISE HENDEE 
 
 Translator c/»THE SIMPLE LIFE" 
 
 AND OTHER BOOKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 MAJOR GENERAL CHARLES MILLER, A. M. 
 
 A T 
 
 FRANKLIN, PENNSYLVANIA 
 1908 
 
^°\ 
 
 LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
 One Copy Received 
 
 FEB 11 1909 
 
 _ OoDvn?m Entry 
 CLASS a_ KXc. No. 
 
 Copyright, 1908 
 .By CHARLES MILLER 
 
 Printed and Bound by The General Manifold and Printing Company, Franklin, Pa. 
 
T O 
 
 His ALSATIAN FELLOW COUNTRYMEN 
 
 IN THE 
 
 UNITED STATES 
 This Book is Dedicated 
 
 BY 
 
 Major General Charles Miller, A. M. 
 
 Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur 
 
AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The object of the present publication is to set 
 forth the prehistorical, geographical, historical and 
 ethnographical facts which unite Alsace to France, 
 in accordance with natural and social laws. 
 
 In defiance of these laws, Germany has wrested 
 Alsace-Lorraine from France, and has dealt its peo- 
 ple the crudest of blows, in depriving a part of them 
 of the land of their birth, the others, of that of their 
 choice. 
 
 Being one of the first fifteen hundred thousand 
 victims of this act of violence, I wish, even to the 
 end of my life, to protest against its iniquity; and 
 that is why, at the age of eighty years, I offer this 
 book to the judgment of my compatriots of France 
 and Alsace. 
 
 It contains, with reference to the common origin 
 of the French and Alsatian territories and the primi- 
 tive people inhabiting them, certain scientific ideas 
 put into popular form for the use of the general 
 public and the younger generation. Beginning 
 with historic times, it enumerates the chief events 
 which succeeded one another in the regions between 
 the Rhine and the sea, from the epoch of their in- 
 vasion and occupation by the Celts, through the 
 Gallo-Roman and Gallo-Frankish periods. 
 
 After setting forth how Alsace became separated 
 from the French Empire created by Charlemagne, 
 in the partition of states among his grandsons, it 
 gives an account of the autonomous conditions un- 
 
VI AUTHOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 der which,_ for seven and a half centuries, it was 
 held under the suzerainty of the German Emperors, 
 and then the circumstances of its restoration to 
 France, of which it became, especially from the time 
 of the Revolution of 1789, one of the most import- 
 ant and patriotic provinces. 
 
 To these various phases of the story of Alsace, 
 are appended episodes, scenes, or little personal 
 dramas, whose object is to characterize the epochs 
 to which they belong. 
 
 The book ends with a synopsis of the events which 
 took place in Alsace from the reign of Louis XIV. 
 to 1 87 1. The aim of it all is to show: 
 
 That in prehistoric times, Alsace was united to 
 France by the formation of the territories of the 
 two, and the identity of the races inhabiting them: 
 
 That the destiny of the two remained one and 
 inseparable during all the centuries which elapsed 
 between the arrival of the Celts and the cession of 
 Alsace to Louis the German : 
 
 That while Alsace was under the suzerainty of 
 the German Emperors, but without incorporation 
 in any German state, it continued to be populated 
 by the native Gallo-Frankish race, although in the 
 end the people had dropped the use of the Romance 
 tongue, to take up the idiom of the neighboring 
 people across the Rhine: 
 
 That after their return to France, two centuries 
 and a half ago, the Alsatians never ceased to give 
 her evidences of their patriotism: 
 
 And lastly, that both the natural and historical 
 facts prove that the Rhine and the Rhine only can 
 properly serve as the boundary between France and 
 Germany. 
 
TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 In having put into English for the purpose of dis- 
 tribution among his friends, this work of his octo- 
 genarian compatriot, with its unique point of view, 
 its quaintly charming tales of early times, and its 
 fervent patriotism, General Miller is certainly add- 
 ing very gracefully to the countless tributes of Al- 
 satian spiritual loyalty to France. 
 
 The Alsatian, though no longer under French 
 government, true to his blood, is a Frenchman in 
 his ideals; and ideals are things the civil authorities 
 cannot coerce. 
 
 Throughout France's struggles for liberty, from 
 the Revolution down, Alsace furnished her with 
 some of her greatest leaders — Ney, Kleber, Lefebvre 
 — and most devoted soldiers of the line; men of 
 intelligence, humanity, generosity and quick re- 
 sponsiveness. Such characteristics as these, hun- 
 dreds of thousands of Alsatians have taken into 
 exile, and such characteristics, together with some- 
 what of the quality that urged the great leaders to 
 their achievements, the donor of this book brought 
 in boyhood into the free atmosphere of America. 
 That he early threw himself into her activities and 
 entered her military life; that he has become the 
 head of a tremendous business, has been largely in- 
 strumental in building up a city, administered in its 
 government, provided for the further education of 
 its workers and gathered together among them a 
 famous Bible class — one of the largest in the world ; 
 
 VII 
 
VIII TRANSLATOR'S INTRODUCTION. 
 
 that he became a Major-General in the National 
 Guard of his State, and has been made a Master of 
 Arts and Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur, in 
 acknowledgment of his 'eminent services to indus- 
 try and commerce — all this is the natural and very 
 suggestive story of this son of two lands so alike 
 in aspirations, so different in fate — a story which it 
 has seemed to the translator should find at least this 
 very small place in "Alsace Throughout the Ages." 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 FIRST VIEW. 
 
 The Ballons d'Alsace, one of the three oldest areas of 
 France. — Fire, air, earth and water. — The universal sea 
 and partial seas. — Vosges, Jura, Pyrenees and Alps. — 
 First living things and succeeding generations. — European 
 floods — Glacial period and glaciers of the Vosges. — The 
 earth's present crust. — Stability of temperature. — Future 
 of our solar system; has it always existed? 
 
 Alsace helped to form one of the three nucleal 
 areas of the territory of France. In order to estab- 
 lish this fact, we must mount well up the ages, into 
 the infinity of time and space. 
 
 The planetary system to which the earth belongs 
 has not always existed in its present form. The 
 stupendous amount of matter composing it, was 
 once all confounded in a fathomless chaos, volatil- 
 ised, seething, blazing in effulgent splendor; it was 
 a nebula, isolated from the other worlds dissemin- 
 ated through space, into which it was radiating its 
 light and its heat. 
 
 Millions of cycles passed while this mass of ig- 
 neous gases and vapors, obedient to the laws of 
 cooling bodies, and to forces within itself, was 
 transformed through partial condensation and con- 
 centration or by centrifugal projections, into our 
 present solar system, the sun in the center, the 
 planets gravitating around it, and their satellites 
 revolving about them. 
 
 The world was made! It was then an incan- 
 
2 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 descent ball, in complete fusion, swathed in dense 
 layers of such of its nebulous matter as the heat 
 still held in that state. Gradually, as the heat de- 
 creased, the enveloping vapors condensed and were 
 deposited upon the surface of the globe, adding to 
 the thickness of the initial crust which this same 
 decrease in heat had already produced there. Last 
 of all, the vapors of water became liquified, and 
 after the lapse of other long cycles the earth lay 
 entirely submerged in a uniform ocean of hot water, 
 which held countless minerals in solution, and was 
 enwrapped in an atmosphere now greatly purified 
 by the giving up of so many vapors. 
 
 These superimposed layers of water and air were 
 yet a long time in clarifying through the discharge 
 of the foreign matter mixed with them — the atmos- 
 phere by letting it fall and melt away in the uni- 
 versal ocean, and the ocean by depositing it on the 
 surface crust below. 
 
 This twofold purification went on with exceeding 
 slowness, for the struggle was long and formidable 
 between the air and the sea, and between the sea 
 and the earth's crust, still burning hot from its con- 
 tact with the enormous furnace which its thin layer 
 of solid matter scarce held in bound. The fires 
 within either kept, this fragile new crust in perpet- 
 ual agitation, or else violently rent it; while the 
 heaving crust, in its turn, caused frightful commo- 
 tions in the enveloping sea, and again, the sea filled 
 the air with masses of vapor, and lashed it into un- 
 imaginable tempests. 
 
 During one of these prodigious combats between 
 the water without and the fire within, the earth's 
 crust was torn asunder in that section of the globe 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 3 
 
 where France now lies, and from the heart of the 
 universal sea there emerged islands, whose granitic 
 masses formed to the westward certain prominent 
 points in Normandy and Brittany, toward the cen- 
 ter a part of Auvergne, and eastward the first peaks 
 of the Vosges, the two Ballons d' Alsace, at the 
 southern extremity of the range. 
 
 No French soil, therefore, is more ancient than 
 Alsace, and in only two other sections of the coun- 
 try is there any soil as old. 
 
 Meanwhile, the struggle between fire and water 
 went on through the earth's crust, which was con- 
 tinually growing thicker from the consolidation of 
 particles within and the superposition of deposits 
 without. As its powers of resistance increased, the 
 solid envelope of the burning sphere yielded less 
 readily to assaults from the molten mass it bounded ; 
 at the same time, when these interior forces accu- 
 mulated to such a degree as to be able to overcome 
 the resistance of the crust, it was so much the more 
 violently disrupted and displaced, rising in some re- 
 gions and sinking in others. The original uniform- 
 ity of its surface was destroyed, and its inequalities 
 now broke the perfect spheroid of the universal sea, 
 dividing it into numerous shallow partial seas, one 
 of which, the Jurassic, bathed the foot of the ear- 
 liest Vosges. 
 
 After the Vosges, the Pyrenees rose to the sur- 
 face, then the Jura, and finally the latest and most 
 imposing groups of the Alps, while the Vosges 
 chain widened, lengthened, and built itself up, tier 
 on tier, out of porphyry, syenite, quartz, and es- 
 pecially great masses of both red and grey sand- 
 stone and calcareous rocks. 
 
4 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 The waters of the seas and lakes, which at differ- 
 ent times had covered that part of the earth's sur- 
 face that was to become France, were in the end 
 driven back into the Atlantic, to serve as the bound- 
 ary on the west, as the Pyrenees did on the south, 
 the Alps and Jura on the southeast, and the Vosges 
 on the east. And now, just as we said earlier that 
 the earth was made, we may say that France was 
 made. 
 
 Before this result was reached, however, the re- 
 gions she was to occupy had passed through many 
 and diverse phases. In those partial seas which long 
 overspread the territory, the earliest living things 
 came into being, — algae and other sea weeds among 
 plants, and among animals, shell fish and crusta- 
 ceans. 
 
 At this time, the whole earth possessed a uni- 
 formly warm temperature, the same at the poles 
 and the equator, and incapable of variation, pro- 
 tected as it was from solar influence by the density 
 of the earth's atmosphere, still heavy, gloomy and 
 opaque. 
 
 When the waters and air had sufficiently cleared, 
 to the first inhabitants of the seas were added fishes 
 and huge aquatic reptiles, of which latter the icthy- 
 osaurus and the plesiosaurus are the types most 
 commonly known. These animals frequented the 
 waters south of the early Vosges. 
 
 All the land which had then emerged upon the 
 surface of the globe, bore a luxuriant vegetation of 
 horsetails, lycopods and ferns of immense, size, 
 whose debris, buried by the successive transforma- 
 tions in the earth's surface, is found to-day in the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES 5 
 
 form of coal deposits. Coal lands were thus formed 
 at both extremities of the Vosges. 
 
 At length, through the continued purification of 
 the air, the earth began to receive the impression 
 of the sun's rays, and to be subject to the influences 
 of day and night, the seasons, and differences of 
 temperature. 
 
 Now the first birds and mammals appeared. The 
 earliest among these latter were in form very much 
 like the tapirs and the roe-deer of our time. They 
 were succeeded by a varied series of herbivores, 
 ending in the mastodons and mammoths, those an- 
 cient models of our modern elephants. 
 
 The great number of animals living upon plants, 
 offered abundant prey to those which live on flesh, 
 so that the carnivores made their appearance shortly 
 after the first of the herbivores. Among the chief 
 species were the cave lion, the cave tiger, the cave 
 bear, the hyena, wolves, jackalls and foxes. The 
 earliest men were contemporary with the most re- 
 cent of these animals. 
 
 While these various generations of living things 
 were succeeding one another, Europe was subjected 
 to two great cataclysms known as floods, and prior 
 to the one commonly called — after the fashion of 
 Moses — the flood, which was occasioned by the rise 
 of the great chain that is a continuation in Asia of 
 the Caucasus. The North of Europe was ravaged 
 by a deluge caused by the upheaval of the Scandi- 
 navian Mountains, and the south of it by another, 
 caused by the rise of the great Alpine group. The 
 waters projected over Europe by these two formid- 
 able commotions, laid mountains low, tunneled out 
 valleys, and covered the plains with an immense 
 
6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES 
 
 deposit of boulders, mud, sand and drift of all 
 kinds, leaving in Alsace, at the foot of the Vosges, 
 considerable deposits of loess, a peculiar mixture of 
 clay, chalk, quartz sand, mica sand and oxide of 
 iron. 
 
 At the end of this period of prodigious upheavals, 
 the Vosges had attained their present dimensions 
 and form, and together with the fine plain which 
 extends from their base to the middle of the valley 
 where the Rhine flows, made a still more complete 
 separation between France and Germany. 
 
 All this European area now enjoyed a warm and 
 humid climate, favorable to a luxuriant vegetation. 
 Oaks, elms, alders, and the other species of our 
 modern trees, filled its vast and richly timbered 
 forests, and in the regions they left bare, stretched 
 endless grassy prairie lands. 
 
 Across this territory with its magnificent forests 
 and savannas, there ranged in great herds the mam- 
 moth, the rhinoceros, two species of ox called au- 
 rochs and urus, horses, and a great number of 
 smaller animals, their happy existence troubled only 
 by the attacks of cave tigers, hyenas, wolves, and 
 other beasts of prey, or of eagles and falcons and 
 the great horned owl. The destruction of the mul- 
 titude of animals and plants that had perished in 
 the two European floods seemed thus to be well 
 atoned' for, when there came a new catastrophe 
 quite as disastrous as the other in point of extent 
 and duration. 
 
 From a cause which no one as yet has been able 
 to determine, there occurred a sudden glacial cold, 
 extending from the pole to the meridional sections 
 of Europe, a cold so instantaneous in its arrival, 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. / 
 
 that within the last hundred years there have been 
 found buried in the snow and ice of Siberia, per- 
 fectly preserved bodies of the mammoth and the 
 rhinoceros of this time, which had been so rapidly 
 prisoned that there was not the least trace of putre- 
 faction about them. 
 
 The mountain heights were weighted down with 
 immense glaciers, which descended through the val- 
 leys to the snow-clad plains. A few intermediate 
 plateaux alone preserved their forests, and served 
 as refuge for the animals that survived the great 
 disaster. 
 
 Just as it is in our own time with the glaciers of 
 the Alps and the other mountains whose tops rise 
 above the line of perpetual snow, so it was with 
 those of the glacial period; yielding to their own 
 weight, and to the pressure of the continual freez- 
 ing at their summits, they glided over the sides of 
 the valleys, breaking away boulders and rock 
 masses, and transporting them often for consider- 
 able distances, meanwhile planing, polishing and 
 grooving the rocks which resisted their onward 
 movement. We find traces of this action in stone 
 quarries, in erratic boulders, and in striated, pol- 
 ished and sheep-back rocks left along the courses 
 of old glaciers. One of the chief of these glaciers 
 in the Alps, descended as far as the upper course of 
 the Rhine, while in the Vosges, two glaciers re- 
 markable for their size were the one extending from 
 the Ballon of Guebwiller into the valley of Saint- 
 Amarin, and the one in the valley of the Moselle, 
 which ended a little way above Remiremont. The 
 glacial period closed as it had begun, without any 
 known cause, and organic life took up again the 
 tenor of its way. 
 
8 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Since this geological epoch, there have been none 
 of those great cataclysmic disturbances which once 
 overturned and transformed the entire typography 
 of the earth. The action of the interior fires is no 
 longer apparent save in limited areas and under pe- 
 culiar conditions, — in earthquakes, volcanic erup- 
 tions, and certain partial elevations or subsidences 
 of land. The ocean levels remain constant, and 
 only rarely do we even find, at some points along 
 their coasts, the slow elevation or depression of 
 deltas. Yet the earth's crust has but a slight thick- 
 ness, of about sixty kilometers, corresponding to 
 no more than the two-hundred-and-sixty-fifth part 
 of the diameter of the molten globe it envelops. 
 
 Furthermore, it has been shown that from the 
 earliest historic times, the mean temperature over 
 the earth's surface has not varied. Among the ob- 
 servations made in determining the fact, is the co- 
 existence of the vine and the palm in certain coun- 
 tries of the Orient. The vine cannot live in regions 
 where the temperature remains for any length of 
 time above twenty-five or thirty degrees centigrade; 
 while the palm perishes where the temperature is 
 continually below that mean. But these two plants 
 are known to have lived together for three thousand 
 years, in Judea and other eastern lands with such 
 a temperature. So the earth's surface has neither 
 increased nor decreased in heat for thirty centuries. 
 
 This stability is due to the fact that the earth 
 receives from the sun as much heat as it loses by 
 radiation, and it will be maintained as long as the 
 sun preserves its present thermal state. But if the 
 solar heat should diminish, that radiant star too 
 would pass through the phases which the earth has 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. O, 
 
 undergone; eventually it would grow dim, be in- 
 crusted, and after ages upon ages, it would become 
 solid, dark and cold, while long before this end had 
 been reached, the planets about it would have suf- 
 fered the same fate, and with the sun would have 
 become invisible in space. 
 
 Is it in this way that cetrain stellar worlds whose 
 disappearance has been established by astronomers, 
 have found their end ? It has in fact been observed, 
 that among the myriads of suns which under the 
 name of fixed stars make up our firmament, and 
 whose number is surely infinite, though we can 
 know only those visible through our telescopes, 
 some disappear, while others come suddenly into 
 view. What is this that is going on in the three 
 infinities of time, space and worlds? And what is 
 to be thought of the assurance with which we some- 
 times hear it affirmed that the universe has always 
 been what it is to-day? 
 
 But without calling to witness these stars which 
 come to their birth and die in the celestial fields 
 open to man's science, and limiting ourselves 
 to the consideration of our own particular system, 
 so small and so humble in the three boundless im- 
 mensities of which we have been speaking, we are 
 forced to recognize the fact that this system had a 
 definite beginning, and was made at a definite time. 
 
 In fact, as we have already said, its present state 
 is the result of conditions to which its original mat- 
 ter has been subjected. By the laws which govern 
 the cooling of a heated body in a medium of a lower 
 temperature than itself, however hot that body and 
 however cold the space about it, a certain time is 
 necessary for the operation; but it needs only a 
 
10 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 certain time, and this time has necessarily a begin- 
 ning and an end. 
 
 For our solar system the end — as yet — is its 
 present state, the heat which the planets receive 
 from the sun equalizing the loss of their own; but 
 the commencement of the cooling of our original 
 nebula — where is that? It also must have its place 
 in time; this cooling cannot have begun with in- 
 finity, since infinity has no beginning. 
 
 However many millions of centuries, therefore, 
 the original matter of our solar system has required 
 for arriving at its present thermal condition and as- 
 suming its present form, this time must have had 
 a point of departure in eternity, and this matter a 
 precise moment of origin. 
 
 A solitary objection may be opposed to this state- 
 ment. In accordance with the known laws of the 
 transformation of heat into motion and motion into 
 heat, the shock of a chance collision between two 
 stellar worlds, would produce an amount of heat, 
 sufficiently great to cause them to pass again into 
 a nebulous state, when they would once more begin 
 the series of phases we have just been describing. 
 
 But, considering the admirable laws of celestial 
 mechanics, may we admit that two stellar worlds 
 could collide in space? Assuredly not. The only 
 occurrence of this order that we may suppose pos- 
 sible, is the impact of a comet against some sun 
 into which it would sink with scarcely a ripple, or 
 against some planet, to which it could give no vital 
 injury, whatever surface commotions it might pro- 
 duce. 
 
 We may therefore repeat our contention that the 
 original matter of that solar system to which the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 1 
 
 earth belongs, has not always existed, but was 
 formed in space, at a given moment; and we may 
 ask, whence did it come? Matter not being able to 
 arise of itself out of nothing, must have been drawn 
 out of it by some more powerful cause of which it 
 is only the effect. 
 
 Our minds cannot rise to the conception of a Su- 
 preme Essence, disposing at will of space, eternity, 
 and worlds, any more than they can rise to a con- 
 ception of these three infinities; but are we not re- 
 duced to a like inability in regard to subjects more 
 nearly within our grasp; since though we know 
 perfectly well their properties and mode of action, 
 we have no account to offer of the true nature of 
 heat, light, or electricity, of the expansive power of 
 gases, of the cohesion of solids, or of gravitation 
 and weight ? 
 
 In our powerlessness to fathom these profound 
 mysteries, let us simply recall the fact, that as men 
 have advanced in intelligence and knowledge, they 
 have passed from belief in the fetich of the savage 
 to belief in the idol of the barbarian ; then to that in 
 the numerous divinities of the civilized nations of 
 antiquity, and have now reached the point where 
 they put their faith in one God, the sovereign Mas- 
 ter of all Nature. 
 
12 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 SECOND VIEW. 
 
 Age of the mammoth, of primitive man, of rough stone. — 
 Origin of the human race. — The dawn of humanity. 
 
 In the long protracted time during which Europe 
 suffered the terrible but transitory catastrophes of 
 the two partial floods and the glacial period, Alsace, 
 like the rest of that part of what we now call the 
 Old World, was covered with fertile plains and 
 vast stretches of forest, rich in all sorts of trees and 
 plants analogous to those existing in our own time. 
 
 It was then inhabited by the mammoth, a great 
 elephant with long, backward-curving tusks, a 
 wooly coat, and a bushy mane running the length 
 of its back; by the two-horned rhinoceros, the hip- 
 popotamus, and those great animals of the ox tribe, 
 the aurochs and urus ; by deer with gigantic* ant- 
 lers, undersized horses, reindeer, and numbers of 
 smaller herbivorus animals. 
 
 In the midst of this peaceable population, huge 
 species of tigers, bears, hyenas, wolves and jackals 
 made incessant and easy depredations. Numerous 
 birds enlivened the woods, the plains, and the bor- 
 ders of the streams, having nothing to fear but the 
 small carnivores, and the eagles, owls, falcons and 
 smaller birds of prey. 
 
 Nature thus diversified and exuberant, was now 
 made complete by the advent of man. 
 
 To establish the existence of this primitive man, 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 3 
 
 antediluvian or prehistoric, as he is called, we shall 
 point out only a few general facts. While the 
 bones found in some of the caves, lairs of beasts, 
 and rocky fissures containing relics of this age, were 
 plainly accumulated by beasts or washed up by tor- 
 rents, in other caves of the mountains or hillsides, 
 animal bones have been found cleft open their whole 
 length, together with human bones and implements 
 hewn out of rough flint — knives, saws, axes, arrow- 
 heads and spear heads, some of which had appar- 
 ently been equipped with handles of wood or bone. 
 
 At some points, piles of the shells of edible sea 
 animals, and here and there traces of a hearth, also 
 attest the presence of man's toil, and there have 
 been discovered mortuary caves, sealed by stone 
 slabs, and containing human bones. Elsewhere verit- 
 able manufactories of the different flint instruments 
 have been unearthed. 
 
 Among all these relics of the age of primitive 
 man, found buried in strata underneath those upon 
 which we live to-day, the most important are com- 
 plete human skulls, the cranium, facial bones and 
 jaws entire. In the valley of the Rhine, but on the 
 German side, a French inventor, M. Aime Boue, 
 found, in 1823, a fragment of a human skull buried 
 in the loess, whose formation dates back to the de- 
 luge caused by the upheaval of the final and greater 
 groups of the Alps ; and in Alsace, in the region of 
 Eguisheim, not far from Colmar, from the same 
 loess, Dr. Fandel picked up, thirty years ago, a skull 
 of the same nature. 
 
 The anatomical study of fossil bones belonging 
 to the first human beings that inhabited Europe, has 
 resulted in establishing the fact that these men were 
 
14 .ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 short, stocky, and strong limbed, resembling in 
 height, build and physiognomy the modern Samo- 
 yards and Esquimoux. Their appearance in Eu- 
 rope, like so many other natural phenomena, is a 
 mystery about which many contending opinions have 
 arisen. 
 
 One of these opinions, which dates from our own 
 century, considers all living beings to be the success- 
 ive and progressive results of an initial material 
 movement. This theory may be summed up as fol- 
 lows: 
 
 By virtue of molecular attraction, and under cer- 
 tain peculiar chance conditions, particles of matter 
 may so unite as to form cells, whose juxtaposition 
 and accretion make the basis of an organic tissue. 
 Through the action of a new cause, the vital force, 
 this primitive tissue develops into a rudimentary liv- 
 ing germ, which terminates this series of evolutions 
 by a being — plant or animal — with the simplest and 
 most elementary organism possible. 
 
 Among these elementary beings, there will be ac- 
 cidentally produced, in time, one or several which 
 are more nearly perfect and stronger than the others, 
 and thus fitted to produce a species more highly or- 
 ganized than that from which they sprang. By the 
 application of this hypothesis to all the phases of ex- 
 istence among organized beings, the conclusion is 
 reached that all beings which have lived and all 
 which now live on the earth, exist as the result of 
 successive transformations and ameliorations; thus 
 from the first germ of the alga to the oak, from 
 the first mollusk down to man, the countless species 
 of organized beings which have existed and which 
 do exist, are nothing but the result of a series of re- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I 5 
 
 peated and chance metamorphoses, that have been 
 ages upon ages in taking place. 
 
 If this has been the way of things, how does it 
 happen that these transformations are no longer go- 
 ing on, but that from the earliest historic times, not 
 the slightest transgression of the law of the invari- 
 ability of species has been detected — a law which at 
 most admits of the production of certain varieties, 
 and, more rarely, of hybrids, incapable of reproduc- 
 tion? 
 
 Under the hypothesis we are considering, man 
 would spring from those animals which his physical 
 type most closely resembles. But even here the re- 
 semblance is much more apparent than real. In- 
 deed, it is almost destroyed by differences of the 
 cranium, jaws and limbs ; but were it even more 
 complete than it appears, it would be only the more 
 difficult to comprehend how in the case of the ape 
 the functioning of the organs of thought is so 
 wretchedly inferior to the marvelous results of the 
 same action in the brain of man. Unquestionably, 
 like most of the higher animals, the ape is suscep- 
 tible of education ; but it is only under the volition 
 of man that its intelligence becomes capable of 
 progress; left to itself, it remains undeveloped and 
 without self-consciousness, knowing nothing more 
 than to repeat again and again the actions demanded 
 by the needs of its existence; while the mind of 
 man constantly develops and improves, has the abil- 
 ity to invent and to arise to the conception of the 
 highest abstractions, and by the light of the torch 
 of Science, dominates all nature. 
 
 The transformation of the ape into man, does 
 not therefore consist solely in certain modifications 
 
1 6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 of the physical structure, and to effect it would 
 have required the impossible prodigy of bridging 
 the abyss which separates the intellectual and moral 
 faculties of the one from the intellectual and moral 
 faculties of the other. 
 
 A very casual observation of the habits of ani- 
 mals is sufficient to show that they do not rear 
 those of their young which are born deformed or 
 sickly. How then should a couple of quadrumana 
 — gibbons, chimpanzees or fierce gorillas, — have 
 nurtured the feeble being, born of them, it is true, 
 but without hairy covering for its naked skin, dis- 
 figured by a high and wide brow and a prominent 
 chin, with' fore limbs too short and hind limbs too 
 straight and too long, too large heels, fingers al- 
 most inflexible, and without opposable thumbs? 
 The mother herself would have repelled it and aban- 
 doned it, while the father would probably have de- 
 stroyed it with tooth and nail. If, however, by 
 some strange chance the frail creature had escaped 
 abandonment or infanticide, its parents would not 
 have been able to protect it against the dangers 
 threatening its infancy, since it could not have 
 bounded with them from limb to limb, or even have 
 climbed the trees in which they lived. Further- 
 more, would not all these strange and exceptional 
 circumstances need to be repeated at many adjacent 
 points, if the new types which owed them their ex- 
 istence were to serve as the stock of a new race? 
 
 So it seems to bristle with numerous and insur- 
 mountable difficulties — this hypothesis which would 
 make the human race descend — or ascend, if you 
 will — from some species of simian, and would have 
 us look upon ourselves as cousins germane of the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. \J 
 
 monkey tribe, and relatives more or less remote of 
 all the other animals. 
 
 But if the earliest human beings did not owe their 
 origin to spontaneous formations and transforma- 
 tions, whence then did those come of whom we find 
 traces everywhere in Europe? Did they, in accord- 
 ance with the religious belief of the Israelites, de- 
 scend from a single ancestor created in the Garden 
 of Eden? In that case, they must have degenerated 
 greatly from that beautiful pair, Adam and Eve, 
 fashioned by the very hand of God; and have wan- 
 dered far from the divine abode inhabited by their 
 forebears in Asia. Coming from the region of that 
 abode of felicity, where their ancestors held con- 
 verse with God and His angels, how had it been 
 possible for them to fall to such a state that they 
 must certainly have been inferior to many island 
 tribes of the Pacific? 
 
 This degeneracy and this distant emigration ap- 
 pear trifling matters, however, in comparison with 
 all that the descendants of Adam must have done 
 and undergone, in order to people the whole earth 
 with such a diversity of races — white, black, reel, 
 yellow and brown, so unlike one another physically, 
 mentally and even morally. 
 
 If the primitive people of Europe did not have 
 their origin in one of these two sources, they must 
 have been formed in this portion of the globe — as, 
 of course, other primitive people in other localities 
 — by the omnipotent will of a Supreme Being, in 
 accordance with whose laws the whole earth 
 throughout the ages, has been peopled with count- 
 less species of plants and animals. 
 
 In whatever manner they may have first entered 
 
1 8 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 into the world, the aborigines of Europe had to en- 
 dure many hardships. Their denta 1 and intestinal 
 equipment forbade their living wholly upon plants, 
 like the herbivores, and they had neither the power- 
 ful claws nor the formidable jaws which enable the 
 carnivores to seize and rend and devour their prey. 
 For food they had only wild fruit, a few roots, and 
 such small animals as they could surprise and catch 
 with their hands, whose flesh they ate raw and 
 bleeding. 
 
 To protect themselves against the inclemencies of 
 the weather, they had only the skins of animals 
 weaker than themselves, which they could find ways 
 to entrap. Their state was wretched and pitiable 
 enough, until the day came when they learned to 
 procure fire to warm them, to cook their food, and 
 to keep ferocious beasts away from their dwellings. 
 
 How did this first step in humanity's progress 
 come about? Doubtless through fires caused by 
 lightning when it struck trees or fell upon dry brush 
 or leaves. The witnesses of this natural phenom- 
 enon, which must have greatly frightened them at 
 first, would eventually come to see how they might 
 make it serve them; they would seize burning 
 brands and light their first fires, and they would 
 take good care to feed them perpetually. 
 
 Also, having seen sparks fly from the sudden con- 
 tact of flint with pyrites or oxides of iron, all very 
 common substances, they may have made use of 
 the process for igniting heaps of dry moss or 
 grasses or piles of vegetable marrow and worm- 
 eaten wood. Perhaps, as most savage tribes of his- 
 toric times have done, they even learned to ignite 
 such inflammable material by placing it in a hole 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO, 
 
 in the surface of a dry log, and then turning rapidly 
 around in this tinder the sharpened end of a stick, 
 which they held vertical between the hands, in order 
 to give it the rotary motion required for heating 
 the pointed extremity and the sides of the hole until 
 fire was produced. 
 
 The conquest of fire, with the knowledge of 
 means to guard it and to light it, brought the first 
 comfort enjoyed by primitive man, so that they 
 took care to have it in all their habitations. 
 
 These habitations were of different kinds. Some 
 of them, and certainly the best, were the caves dis- 
 covered in the mountains or hillsides, in which the 
 members of a more or less numerous family might 
 live together under shelter, and • store their food. 
 If such caves failed them, no doubt these primitive 
 men learned to dig out artificial ones, by removing 
 the earth between boulders properly situated. Some- 
 times they contented themselves with the shelter of 
 a projecting rock, adding protection at the sides 
 by piling up stones or wood. 
 
 And finally, there is scarcely any doubt that the 
 dwelling of these aborigines was often a conical hut, 
 made by fixing a number of rods in the ground in 
 the form of a circle, binding their tops together 
 with stout wild vines, filling this roof in with turf 
 and the branches of trees, and then covering the 
 whole with skins — a construction like that which 
 the wandering Indian tribes of America still build, 
 as also — with the omission of the skins — woodchop- 
 pers do, for their temporary sojourns in the forests 
 of Europe. 
 
 These habitations, of whatever kind, were always 
 located in the vicinity of a spring, a brook, a river, 
 
20 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 or a natural reservoir, and before the entrance of 
 each burned a fire, so sheltered as to prevent the 
 extinction of the flame, and carefully tended for 
 its warmth, for cooking, and for keeping at a dis- 
 tance beasts of prey and other animals dangerous 
 from their size and ferocity. 
 
 Primitive man made his garments from the skins 
 and fur of the animals he killed for his food. He 
 cut them to suit their various uses, and sewed them 
 together with nerves or tendons or with twisted 
 filaments of gut. These filaments he also used for 
 making cord and ropes of various sizes and 
 strength. All these materials he prepared and made 
 durable by exposing them a longer or shorter time 
 to dry in the warm air of the fires before the homes. 
 
 Having at first only stout cudgels for weapons, 
 these men, so poorly equipped by nature with 
 means of attack and defense, came in time to adapt 
 to these uses sharp flints of good size, which they 
 fashioned into axes or spears; and at length they 
 learned to make bows and arrows, using arrow- 
 heads of flint or pointed bone. 
 
 Now confident in their own strength and prowess, 
 these early men no longer feared the great carni- 
 vores which were their contemporaries, and even 
 dared to hunt the most ferocious herbivorous ani- 
 mals, and those most formidable because of their 
 colossal size. Among other means for getting these 
 great creatures into their power, they must certainly 
 have employed a ruse still used in the East Indies 
 and in Africa. A trench was dug and then cov- 
 ered over with brush and the branches of trees, in 
 such fashion that any great animal trampling upon 
 them would break through into the opening they 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 21 
 
 hid from its eyes. The captive of these primitive 
 hunters then perished under a fire of arrows and 
 broken rock, and abundantly supplied their needs. 
 
 The greater variety of food thus provided by 
 their weapons, at once began to create special gas- 
 tronomic tastes in these primitive folk. They de- 
 veloped a marvelous liking for marrow, which they 
 eagerly stripped out of all the large bones contain- 
 ing it; so that in the localities where they lived, 
 these bones are always found artificially cleft from 
 end to end. 
 
 The conditions of life to which these men were 
 subjected, were plainly not favorable to their form- 
 ing themselves into groups of any size. The few 
 which they were able to make, here and there, were 
 not large enough to be of any significance, and in 
 general they lived in small and scattered families. 
 Among the inevitable results of this isolation, were 
 a slow mental development and the prolongation of 
 the primitive state; but it also followed, that since 
 there were no assemblages into groups or hordes, 
 there were no pretexts for those wars which have 
 arisen among men since their union into clans, 
 tribes and peoples. 
 
 Moreover, having no possessions of an individual 
 nature, and being in constant need of the aid they 
 could give one another in the chase, they must have 
 been ignorant of envy and cupidity, and unacquaint- 
 ed with rapine and theft. Not knowing how, either, 
 to manufacture fermented liquor of any kind, they 
 were exempt from the deplorable quarrels that 
 drunkenness brings about. If any reason for hatred 
 presented itself among them, it must have arisen 
 from disputed rights to the possession of some worn- 
 
22 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 an — though love and jealousy are passions we 
 might expect to find very feeble and rare in the 
 midst of an existence subject to so many needs and 
 such hardships and dangers. 
 
 From their funeral feasts and other observances, 
 to which all the neighboring families were invited, 
 it is plain that general respect was shown their dead 
 relatives and friends; and that men should be so 
 honored after death, would seem to show that they 
 were loved and respected in life. We cannot doubt, 
 therefore, that these primitive people cared for their 
 aged and orphans, and for the sick and infirm. As 
 the existence of the family depended upon the ac- 
 tivities of its head, who might at any moment be 
 incapacitated by some accident or meet with death, 
 mutual helpfulness was to the interest of all, not 
 alone where the leaders were concerned, but also 
 among those dependent upon these hardy followers 
 of the chase. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 27, 
 
 THIRD VIEW. 
 
 Aborigines of Alsace. Characteristic Episode: Belette 
 and Bear Slayer. 
 
 No collections of prehistoric remains have been 
 discovered, to show the presence in Alsace of these 
 earliest men; up to our own time, none of those 
 important stations have been unearthed which are 
 found in some localities in France and in other 
 parts of Europe. So the primitive race would seem 
 to have had few representatives here, those few be- 
 ing, no doubt, scattered along the lower slopes of 
 the Vosges, whose summits were covered with gla- 
 ciers. The skull of Eguisheim, buried in the loess, 
 gives its unquestionable witness to this idea. These 
 men would have found most favorable to them the 
 great valleys of the Vosges, better protected against 
 storms and the seasons' changes than the plains or 
 the higher mountain slopes. It was at the foot of 
 these slopes that the primitive habitations were 
 made in natural or artificial caves, or in simple 
 shelters built of rocks, stakes, turf, and the skin of 
 beasts. 
 
 Let us turn our thoughts for a moment to one 
 of these dwellings in the far-spreading valley of 
 Orbey, which opens into the Alsatian plain where 
 to-day the two towns of Ammerschwihr and Kient- 
 sheim stand, and extends for more than twenty- 
 five kilometers, beyond the point where the ruins 
 of the ancient abbey of Pairis rise, away to the foot 
 
24 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 of the mountains whose lofty granite peaks encircle 
 the regions of White Lake and Black Lake. 
 
 From the flanks of one of the mountains which 
 form the valley's southern boundary, a half score 
 of kilometers from the plain, rises a group of great 
 granite rocks, overhanging the spot where to-day 
 are seen the vast heaps of ruins of the cloister of 
 Alspach. There, between the almost vertical sides 
 of two of these great rocks, is a narrow winding- 
 passageway leading to a cavern within, roomy 
 enough to house a number of human beings. 
 
 On the floor in the rear of this subterranean 
 abode, is spread an accumulation of mosses, leaves, 
 dried grasses and undressed skins — rude enough 
 bedding, but answering the needs of those who are 
 destined to sleep here. Other skins and furs, for 
 the most part converted into garments, are strung 
 along a strong liana, fastened high at both ends on 
 one wall of the cave. Elsewhere on the ground of 
 the cave is piled up a small store of roots, wild 
 fruits, and meat, the last either fresh or frozen, ac- 
 cording to the season. In one corner is a collec- 
 tion of axes, spears and bows and arrows, with flint 
 arrow-heads ready for use. Three aurochs' skulls 
 serve as seats, and skulls of deer, wolves and hyenas 
 for use as utensils, complete the rude furnishings 
 of the cavern, while at its entrance a great urus 
 hide hangs like a portiere. 
 
 A step away, at the foot of the rock outside, and 
 surrounded by a number of great stones, a fire is 
 burning, and around it are grouped three human 
 beings. They are all dressed in wolf skins, and 
 have their feet enveloped in coverings of fur, turned 
 upwards around the ankles and tied securely with 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 25 
 
 thongs of gut. One of them, a woman, is distin- 
 guished from her companions by longer hair, a stat- 
 ure slightly lower and slimmer, features less rude, 
 softer eyes and smaller hands. She seems about 
 forty years old. She is seated on a granite block, 
 exposing to the flame a large piece of meat, on a 
 spit of green wood, whose ends rest upon two forked 
 stakes driven into the ground. 
 
 Beside her stands a man a little older and stockier 
 than she, his rough-hewn features framed in bushy 
 black hair that falls to his shoulders, while his upper 
 lip and chin are covered with short and sparse 
 bristles. With a number of tightly drawn bands, 
 he has just succeeded in fastening firmly together 
 around the thicker end of a jade ax-head, the two 
 sides of a split he has made in one end of a stout 
 stick, and is regarding with a satisfied eye the fine 
 axe he has added to his store of weapons. 
 
 The third person presented to us in the little 
 scene, is the son of the other two. He is not over 
 nineteen at the most, but he is already as tall, as 
 robust, and as strong as his father, from whom he 
 differs only in having a more juvenile face, less 
 roughly cut features, and no beard. Seated, like his 
 mother, on a piece of rock, he is making an auroch's 
 horn into a trumpet. With a sharp bit of flint he 
 has sawed off the heavy tip, and in the narrow open- 
 ing thus made has firmly fastened a short piece of 
 bone, flattened on one side, and sloping obliquely 
 toward the large end of the horn. This needs only 
 to be forcefully blown, to make it produce harsh and 
 very penetrating sounds. 
 
 The three operations we have been following so 
 carefully are finished almost at the same moment; 
 
26 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 the son's trumpet is sonorous, the father's axe firm, 
 and the mother's roast is done to a turn. The meat 
 is placed on a rock, the three sit down around it, 
 and fragment by fragment it is made away with, 
 all eating heartily. The consumption of the meat 
 is followed by that of a quantity of fresh water, 
 which the son has fetched from a neighboring 
 spring in two wolf skulls. Out of these the whole 
 family drink at their pleasure. 
 
 The meal has been almost as silent as the labor 
 which preceded it, for these people, having few new 
 ideas to communicate, talk little, conversation never 
 becoming animated among them save when they re- 
 count the dangers or mishaps of the chase. 
 
 The day is now drawing to a close, and through 
 the veil of the falling darkness, fires begin to be 
 visible burning in front of the habitations scattered 
 here and there at the foot of the mountains which 
 shut in the valley. Before the night has fallen com- 
 pletely, the little family we have been watching, 
 having first fed the fire before their cave, have gone 
 inside and given themselves to sleep. 
 
 If these primitive people at whom we have been 
 looking for a moment, have at all aroused our in- 
 terest, let us become a little more enlightened upon 
 the subject of their previous history. 
 
 An old man had died in one of these dwellings 
 in the valley of Orbey, and his family, wishing to 
 proceed with the usual ceremony, had a summons 
 sent out, from neighbor to neighbor, for an assem- 
 bly of all the inhabitants of this part of the Vosges. 
 Although one member of each family, usually the 
 wife, always remained behind, to care for the chil- 
 dren, keep up the fire, and guard against the depre- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 27 
 
 dations of beasts, quite a large number of people 
 had been able to come together, among whom were 
 even some girls. 
 
 After the rites in honor of the dead, a score of 
 his relatives sat down to the feast which always 
 followed. Among these guests was a girl of nine- 
 teen or twenty, one of the most attractive of her 
 race. She was called Belette, and she had arrested 
 the attention of a young man a little older than her- 
 self, known as the most daring hunter of the region, 
 and called Bear Slayer, in token of his victory in a 
 perilous encounter with a bear, which in size and 
 strength far surpassed the largest bears of modern 
 times. 
 
 In the course of the day, Bear Slayer had several 
 times sought out Belette, and they had exchanged 
 a few words. During the feast he sat beside her, 
 and before night had dispersed the guests he had 
 learned her name, her age, and where she lived. 
 He knew also that she would be glad to see him in 
 the home of her parents, among the people to whom 
 she was attached. 
 
 This young hunter of the Vosges had no need 
 to learn more, and after a few days, having in- 
 formed his own family of his intentions, he set out 
 at daybreak to make his way to her whom he had 
 chosen to be his companion through life. 
 
 He had put on his finest garments, made from 
 the pelt of the bear to which he owed his name; 
 had covered his head with the tawny hide of a fox, 
 letting his long black locks escape from this head- 
 dress; and had shod himself with fresh wolf skins, 
 bound high and close around his ankles. An axe 
 hung from his belt, a bow and arrow were sus- 
 
28 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 pended from his left shoulder, and in his right hand 
 he carried a spear. 
 
 Although his stride appeared a little heavy, it was 
 swift and sure, and in spite of the fact that he had 
 many times to go out of his way to avoid obstacles, 
 and that he spent some moments in waylaying and 
 killing a fine deer, it took him only four hours to 
 arrive at the end of the valley, where lived Old Oak, 
 the father of Belette. Here he found, engaged in 
 various occupations, Belette's parents and her 
 younger sister, Oak Leaf. 
 
 At his approach, the elder of the girls went to 
 meet him with a smile of welcome, and relieved 
 him of the game he was carrying over his shoulder. 
 Then, addressing himself to the head of the family, 
 the young hunter said: "I am called Bear Slayer, 
 and I live with my parents at the entrance of the 
 valley, not far from the plain. I saw Belette at the 
 last funeral ceremonies, and she told me it would 
 give her pleasure to have me come to see you, so 
 I have come, and have brought you this deer which 
 I surprised by the way." 
 
 "I, too, am glad to see you," replied Old Oak, 
 "for I have heard that you are a good, brave hun- 
 ter. Lay aside your weapons and rest awhile." 
 Then he added, after a moment's silence, "What do 
 you want of me?" 
 
 "I want Belette," said Bear Slayer, with an af- 
 fectionate look toward the girl, whose sun-browned 
 face lighted up with naive joy. "She pleased me 
 from the first moment I saw her, and after talking 
 with her, I want to have her for my wife. If she 
 consents, I will see to it that she lives in abundance, 
 for my spear and arrows will always keep hunger 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 20, 
 
 away from my dwelling. "Belette, will you go 
 back with me, and you, Old Oak, do you consent?" 
 
 "If you will promise to be as good and kind to 
 her as I am told you are to your parents, you may 
 have her," replied Old Oak, "as soon as you have 
 a lodge to receive her." 
 
 At this, Bear Slayer, in token of friendship, gave 
 his hand to Old Oak, his wife and the young girl, 
 Oak Leaf, and then threw his arms about Belette, 
 who abandoned herself to his caresses. He passed 
 the remainder of the day in the midst of the 
 family with which he had allied himself, and 
 when night came, slept by the side of Belette. 
 
 On the morrow of this swift and brutal betrothal, 
 Bear Slayer returned to his parents, told them the 
 result of his journey, and went in search of a habi- 
 tation where he might set up his housekeeping. 
 Not far from his father's dwelling he found a fa- 
 vorable spot, and soon had it arranged in accord- 
 ance with his needs. 
 
 His father and he then set out for the home of 
 Old Oak, and there, in the presence of a few neigh- 
 bors, the parents of the two young people declared 
 their union, and the customary banquet followed. 
 
 Belette, after being affectionately received by the 
 mother of Bear Slayer, followed her husband to 
 the dwelling he had prepared for her, and there 
 they had lived together during the twenty years 
 preceding the time when we saw them with their 
 son, whose precocious strength had earned him the 
 name of Strong Arm. 
 
 During this long period of their life, which was 
 hard and toilsome, but happy withal, they had to 
 bear but one unexpected sorrow. The first born 
 
30 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 of their two boys, when he was four years old, 
 escaped one day from the guard of his mother,, and 
 wandering a little way from the dwelling, was sur- 
 prised, seized and carried off and devoured by 
 wolves. The grief of his parents was softened by 
 time and by the care and affection with which they 
 guarded the second of their two children. 
 
 A few days after we saw them with Belette in 
 front of their home, Bear Slayer and his son were 
 preparing to go hunting, when they heard a trumpet 
 call sound from a point further up the valley. It 
 was a signal they well knew, and they passed it on 
 in their turn, going out some distance toward the 
 plain. Meanwhile, the flanks of the opposite moun- 
 tains began to reverberate from point to point with 
 similar calls sent out in the same direction. 
 
 This signaling was the result of an agreement 
 among the aborigines of the great valley of Orbey, 
 in accordance with which any one of them who 
 needed the assistance of the others immediately 
 sounded one or more alarms. These were taken up 
 and repeated from habitation to habitation. After 
 accomplishing this first duty, each then set out to- 
 ward the point whence the signal came to him ; and 
 thus in the end they all found themselves united at 
 the place from which it had started. 
 
 This is what now happened according to their 
 custom; so that in less than three hours fifteen of 
 these aborigines of the Vosges met at a dwelling 
 situated a short distance from the gorge opening 
 into the great valley from the deep and narrow vale 
 in whose upper part now lies the smiling village of 
 Frelan. In few words, as precise as they were con- 
 cise, they were informed by the master of this primi- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 3 1 
 
 tive dwelling, who bore the name of Great Eagle, 
 that several times recently, at nightfall, a great tiger 
 had been seen to come out from the woods whose 
 thickets spread over the gorge, go down into the 
 valley, drink at the stream which runs through it 
 all the way from the lakes to the plain, and after 
 satisfying his thirst, return as he had come, leaving 
 so many tracks as to make a veritable trail into the 
 underbrush from which he sallied out. ' 
 
 When the facts were made known, these men, 
 more accustomed to act than to talk, spent little time 
 deliberating. With one accord they decided to at- 
 tack the murderous beast without delay, and to con- 
 tinue the warfare until they had either killed it or 
 driven it out of the vicinity. 
 
 For the attack, the hunters were to be divided 
 into two groups, one made up of the men from the 
 head of the valley, the other of those from the vicin- 
 ity of the plain. Toward night each group was to 
 take up a position in the wood, at two or three hun- 
 dred paces from the gorge, and wait until the tiger 
 appeared. When he had gone on his way toward 
 the river, they were to come out quickly, and after 
 leaving a quarter of some large game on his trail, 
 station themselves on opposite sides of it, and wait 
 for his return. When the tiger seized upon the 
 game to carry it off to his lair, they were to let fly 
 their volleys of arrows, and beat a hasty retreat. 
 These manoeuvres were to begin the next day, and 
 to be repeated daily until the death or disappearance 
 of the beast. 
 
 Though the arrangements were all duly made, 
 the projected watch and attack were impracticable 
 on the following three nights, whose twilight was 
 
32 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 transformed by a heavy fog into dense blackness, 
 and whose obscurity was disturbed only by muffled 
 roars from the tiger during his excursion to the 
 drinking place. The case was no better on the 
 fourth night, for the sky was still lowery, so that 
 the hunters had barely a glimpse of the animal as 
 he emerged from the wood, without being able to 
 distinguish the direction he took either going or 
 coming. 
 
 The fifth day the weather was more favorable; 
 the air was clear, and the twilight shadows were 
 not so deep but that even comparatively small ob- 
 jects could be distinguished a hundred paces off. 
 An hour before nightfall the hunters had returned 
 to their respective posts, — seven of them on one 
 side, led by Great Eagle, and on the other side eight, 
 under the leadership of Bear Slayer. Motionless, 
 silent, and hidden in the thick brush at the edge 
 of the wood, they waited patiently until the sun 
 had disappeared behind the high peaks of - the 
 Vosges. Soon their anxious gaze, fixed upon the 
 space between the two groups, was rewarded by 
 the sight of the great beast, which came out of the 
 wood along the trail it was accustomed to follow, 
 halted for a moment, then, confident in its great 
 strength and scornful of danger, descended slowly 
 toward the river, trampling down the tall grasses 
 and weeds of the meadow through which the rush- 
 ing stream flowed. 
 
 Then the hunters glided swiftly across the under- 
 brush, coming up from either side to within thirty 
 paces of the trail, arranged their bait — the haunch 
 of a wild boar — a little further off and in plain 
 sight, and again concealed themselves in the wood. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 33 
 
 In spite of their courage and resolution, they were 
 greatly perturbed as the moment for the hazardous 
 encounter drew near, and they heartily wished it 
 were past. They had not long to wait. After drink- 
 ing deep at the river, the tiger turned back the way 
 he had come. When within a hundred paces of his 
 customary entrance to the wood, he halted, as 
 though scenting the presence of his enemies, slowly 
 turning his head from left to right, toward the 
 points where they lay in hiding. Then, seeing no 
 one, and catching the first whiff of the bait that 
 had been thrown out for him, he crept stealthily 
 forward, to surprise his prey, and when he had come 
 near enough, made a formidable spring, seizing 
 upon it with teeth and claws. Surprised at not 
 finding it alive, he nevertheless fastened his strong 
 jaws into it, lifted it from the ground, and started 
 out to carry it to his den. 
 
 This was the moment for which the hunters had 
 been waiting. As the tiger started toward the wood, 
 they let fly their twofold volley of arrows, and then 
 took to flight. Three only among them halted long- 
 enough to draw their bows a second time. 
 
 A number of arrows were deeply bedded in the 
 shoulders and flanks of the tiger, but he was 
 not yet vanquished. Drunk with pain and rage, 
 he dropped the treacherous prey, and with his teeth 
 began breaking off the shafts of the arrows buried 
 in his body. This only added to his suffering, and 
 feeling his powerlessness to free himself. from the 
 weapons that were wounding him so cruelly, he 
 gave a roar of fury, and dashed in pursuit of the 
 three belated hunters, the sound of whose retreat 
 he had heard. He would certainly have been upon 
 
34 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 them in a few bounds, had not his course been 
 checked by the arrows in his sides continually strik- 
 ing against the brush and trees. But in spite of 
 this hindrance and a copious flow of blood from 
 his wounds, he was soon within reach of two of 
 the fleeing men. They were Bear Slayer and 
 Strong Arm. 
 
 Aware that they were sharing in imminent dan- 
 ger, and doubtless hoping to insure the safety of 
 his son, Bear Slayer resolved to hazard a decisive 
 struggle. He suddenly halted, and dropping on 
 one knee with his back against a tree, lowered his 
 head, leveled his spear and awaited the charge. An 
 instant afterward the man was crushed under the 
 weight of the tiger, which the new wound it re- 
 ceived still left with enough life to tear madly at the 
 fur coverings of its victim's body. At this mo- 
 ment, Strong Arm, conscious that his father was 
 no longer near him, turned about and saw him in 
 the murderous clutches of the tiger. He did not 
 hesitate, but rushing upon the terrible beast, gave 
 it a spear thrust near the shoulder, and springing 
 aside to escape the movement it made to seize him, 
 he twice more plunged his weapon into its body. 
 At last it sank to the ground, its forces spent from 
 loss of blood, and scarcely able to utter a final cry. 
 
 Bear Slayer was dead, his neck broken by the 
 shock of the encounter. His son lifted him out of 
 the pool of blood in which the two bodies lay, called 
 back the other hunters by a signal from his horn, 
 and was soon surrounded by them all. 
 
 They quickly constructed two litters and bore 
 away the bodies of man and tiger to the home of 
 Belette, to whom the tidings of Bear Slayer's death 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 35 
 
 had been carried already by her son, and who was 
 giving way to her grief. All night long she la- 
 mented beside the body of her husband, where she 
 had thrown herself down and where she remained 
 heedless of everything around her. In the morn- 
 ing, her son succeeded in calming her grief. 
 
 Meanwhile, the other hunters had withdrawn 
 their arrows from the enemy's body and removed 
 the skin, and had made ready a burial place for 
 Bear Slayer in a cavity of the rock. They wrapped 
 him in the skin of the animal he had so heroically 
 attacked the day before, and laid him to rest, filling 
 up the entrance to his tomb with a great stone. 
 
 During the funeral feast following the burial, of 
 which the tiger's flesh did not fail to make a part, 
 Great Eagle briefly praised the courage and mutual 
 devotion which the father and son had shown, and 
 proposed that in commemoration of it the latter 
 should hereafter bear the name of Death-to-Tigers. 
 
36 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 FOURTH VIEW. 
 
 Age of the reindeer. — Glacial deluge. — A new human 
 race. — Aryan beginnings. — Age of polished stone, of 
 megalithic monuments; pagan walls of the Vosges. — ■ 
 War. — Lake dwellers. — Progress. — Beginnings of agricul- 
 ture; domestic animals. — Discovery of bronze. — Charac- 
 teristic episode: Tamal and Misie. 
 
 In spite of the extreme slowness with which the 
 glacial period continued to pursue its phase of de- 
 cadence, surface changes of considerable import- 
 ance took place in the region comprised within the 
 English Channel, the Atlantic Ocean, the Pyrenees, 
 the Mediterranean, the Alps, the Jura and the 
 Rhine — that small section of the earth which later 
 was to form France and Belgium. The climate be- 
 came more temperate. The glaciers of the lesser 
 mountains gradually diminished and disappeared, 
 and an abundant vegetation covered the peaks, the 
 slopes and the valleys thus left denuded. The waters 
 produced by the melting of so much ice, changed 
 the contour of the valleys and overspread them with 
 new deposits, which were carried even into the 
 neighboring plains. 
 
 Deer with gigantic antlers, the cave bear, the 
 cave hyena, the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus 
 had ceased to exist in this part of Europe, and the 
 tiger and mammoth were dying out; reindeer, the 
 horse, and numerous species of small carnivores and 
 herbivores now inhabited the region. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 37 
 
 Enjoying greater security and more favorable cli- 
 matic conditions, members of the human family now- 
 had an easier life. Instead of finding refuge almost 
 entirely in caves, they multiplied their habitations 
 under detached natural shelters, or in huts built with 
 their own hands, in whose interior, they contrived 
 to arrange a hearth suitable for their needs. 
 
 Instead of being scattered apart by the force of 
 circumstances, these dwellings could be brought to- 
 gether in little groups, thus lending themselves to 
 the instinctive leaning toward sociability possessed 
 by man, which is at once the foundation and the 
 means of his perfectibility. This instinct it was 
 which in earlier times had made it possible to set 
 up at certain points veritable manufactories of flint 
 implements, the first germ of trade, and had brought 
 about the first commercial relations, so to put it, 
 through the habit of searching for flint in certain 
 localities, especially in Champagne, for transporta- 
 tion into other localities which were without it. 
 
 The men of the reindeer epoch were not content 
 to make all their implements out of flint; they used 
 also the bones and antlers of the reindeer; and as 
 the abundance of game gave them plenty of leisure, 
 they brought these implements to great perfection, 
 and made new ones whose smaller dimensions and 
 more delicate outlines demanded unquestionable 
 skill, such as needles, bodkins, barbed arrowheads, 
 fish hooks, handles for knives and daggers, and var- 
 ious sorts of ornaments. 
 
 Nor were they satisfied with the improvement of 
 their weapons and household utensils; they felt a 
 taste for art beginning to grow within them, of 
 which traces are found in numerous figures of men 
 
38 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 and animals sketched on fragments of reindeer ant- 
 lers, bits of ivory, or soft, flat stones. 
 
 They had abandoned their heavy fur coverings 
 of aurochs, bear or wolf skin, for lighter garments 
 made of reindeer skin, from which they had learned 
 how to remove the hair, and which they made supple 
 and durable by curing in marrow and brains. Their 
 chief food was the flesh of reindeer and of the 
 horses that inhabited the country in large herds. 
 
 They no longer buried their dead individually in 
 rocky crevices, as their predecessors had done; but 
 they placed them side by side or one above another, 
 in more spacious cavities, which they closed with 
 slabs of rocks, leaving near each body the weapons 
 the man had carried in life, and even a little store 
 of provisions, a thing which tended to show that 
 they believed him about to continue, under other 
 conditions, the life he had just left. The custom 
 of the funeral feast was preserved. 
 
 Such were the general conditions in the region 
 whose successive and diverse transformations have 
 been described in the preceding pages, when a new 
 cataclysm came to modify them once more. Up 
 to this time, the rigors of the glacial period had 
 relaxed very little; but now, no doubt because of a 
 sudden rise of temperature at the earth's surface, 
 there came a simultaneous and instantaneous melt- 
 ing of the ice all over Europe, leaving intact only 
 that which then charged and still charges the loft- 
 iest peaks of the highest mountains. The tremend- 
 ous quantity of water this set free at all these points 
 at once, caused overwhelming floods, which every- 
 where tore up the soil, laying waste valleys and 
 plains, washing out deep ravines, and leaving vast 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 39 
 
 deposits of boulders, alluvium and mud. Is that 
 rich, clayey loam which covers parts of the valleys 
 of the Rhine and Rhone, due to these floods alone, 
 or did they do no more than add to a deposit which 
 had been made there already during the upheaval 
 of the final Alpine groups? However it may be, 
 this stratum acquired a great thickness, and ex- 
 tends so far as to cover even a considerable portion 
 of Belgium. 
 
 This European deluge, due to that precipitate 
 melting of the ice which brought the glacial period 
 to a close, caused the disappearance from the re- 
 gion, either by extermination or emigration, of a 
 great number of animals, and of that race of men 
 which was contemporary with the mammoth and 
 the reindeer; if a few individuals of this primitive 
 race were able to survive, they were absorbed in the 
 new human family then appearing in the places they 
 had inhabited. 
 
 Scientists are agreed in considering these new in- 
 habitants of Europe to be natives of the Caucasus, 
 driven from their homes by the cold which had 
 settled over its lofty mountains, and wandering un- 
 til they reached this far region, to become, under 
 the generic name of Aryans, the successors of the 
 earlier European race. 
 
 It is needless to describe here the form and fea- 
 tures which distinguished this Caucasian race, since 
 it has endured to the present age, and with the ex- 
 ception of some slight variations due to climate or 
 differing customs, possessed the same characteristics 
 that it has in modern times. 
 
 In the early period of their appearance in Europe, 
 these new people's ways of life were little different 
 
40 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 from those of the race they had displaced, and 
 scarcely better; but step by step they succeeded in 
 improving their condition. Along the coast they 
 lived chiefly upon shell-bearing sea -animals and fish, 
 as is shown by heaps of refuse that have been found 
 in the department of the Pas de Calais, and es- 
 pecially in Denmark. The dwellers on lake or river 
 banks learned to add the products of fishing to 
 those of the chase; for eventually they made nets 
 and dugouts, numbers of which have been found 
 buried in alluvial or lake-shore deposits, and in the 
 peat-beds whose formation was subsequent to that 
 of the latest alluvial land. The reindeer, now con- 
 fined to the north, had disappeared from these re- 
 gions, as had also the numerous bands of horses 
 which formerly roamed through them; but the 
 hunters found an abundance of red deer, wild boars, 
 and numerous other hairy or feathered game, and 
 it seems to be established beyond a doubt that they 
 were skillful enough to domesticate the dog. The 
 brown bear and the wolf were the only animals 
 they still had to fear and to fight. The climate, now 
 greatly moderated, no longer imposed the necessity 
 of covering the whole body with furs, as in the age 
 of the mammoths, nor even in the less cumbersome 
 garments of reindeer skin which had been worn 
 later in the same age. It now sufficed to cover the 
 shoulders and loins with the lighter and more supple 
 pelt of the roe-deer and other smaller animals. 
 
 The influence of these new conditions, favorable 
 to the central region of western Europe, was also 
 favorable to the progress of its inhabitants. Their 
 numbers increased rapidly; their open air shelters 
 and huts were modified into more substantial dwell- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 41 
 
 ings, which were made from the trunks and 
 branches of treos, and commenced to take on the 
 aspect of thatched cottages ; and they began to build 
 these in groups, thus laying the earliest foundations 
 for the formation of clans, tribes and peoples. 
 
 But the thing which above all others character- 
 izes this epoch of humanity is the improvement in 
 implements. Hitherto, excepting a few objects 
 fashioned out of reindeer antlers, they had been 
 made solely of rough flint; from this time on, pol- 
 ished flint was used, and in addition skillfully 
 worked stag horn. Axes, knives, saws, and the 
 heads of arrows, javelins and pikes, were no longer 
 made of anything but polished flint, and were fitted 
 into handles by sockets of stag horn cunningly 
 adapted to the purpose. 
 
 For instance, an axe consisted of a stout blade of 
 polished flint, well sharpened, and firmly fixed in a 
 socket of stag horn, the latter being pierced a little 
 way back by a hole through which a strong hard 
 wood handle was introduced at right angles. 
 
 The antlers of the red deer and other bony struc- 
 tures were used with much greater skill and art than 
 had been shown in utilizing the antlers of the rein- 
 deer, and were made to serve for a large number 
 of small tools and ornaments. Among the things 
 which witness to man's mechanical labors in this 
 age so far in our past, it remains for us to mention 
 the debris of pottery or terra cotta utensils. 
 
 It is to the age of polished stone that dolmens, 
 menhirs and cromlechs belong, those ancient monu- 
 ments which were long attributed to the Celts, and 
 designated under the name of Druidcal stones. By 
 objects found with them, it is made evident that 
 
42 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 they belong to the time of the prehistoric race with 
 which we are dealing. 
 
 The dolmens were great slabs of rock raised upon 
 rock pillars, thus making a covered space and even 
 long galleries. Here the dead were buried, either 
 singly or in groups, the bodies being covered with 
 earth heaped up to form the rounded mounds that 
 bear the name of tumuli, and that frequently at- 
 tained to large dimensions. 
 
 Near these burial places, great vertical pillars of 
 rock called menhirs were often raised, and when 
 they were arranged in a circle or rectangle around 
 a tumulus, the place thus enclosed became a crom- 
 lech. These imposing witnesses to the labors of 
 men in the nearest prehistoric times, are nowhere 
 more numerous than in Brittany, where one may 
 yet see, near Carnac, the celebrated field of stand- 
 ing stones, consisting of eleven parallel rows of 
 vertical stone columns extending for the distance 
 of a kilometer. 
 
 With these megalithic structures of the epoch of 
 polished stone, belong some discovered at different 
 points in our own regions, which must certainly 
 have served the men who established them as de- 
 fensive fortifications. These intrenched camps, 
 many of which are found in certain sections of Bel- 
 gium, and stand for the most part on heights over- 
 looking deep valleys, are in the form of thick walls 
 built of great stone blocks, fitted together, but with- 
 out mortar. 
 
 To this species of defensive works belongs un- 
 questionably the one which under the name of the 
 Pagan Wall, runs along over several of our moun- 
 tains of the Vosges, a portion of it being near Ten- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 43 
 
 nichel, above the valley of Ribeauville. There one 
 is astounded to find yet, extending for a distance 
 of two kilometers, enormous blocks of stone aligned 
 and built up in the manner of a wall, whose thick- 
 ness and height both range from two to three 
 meters, and which frequently rests against the bases 
 of great rocks that figure in it like towers. 
 
 A portion of the Pagan Wall still more impos- 
 ing, stretches for fifteen kilometers along the crests 
 of the Vosges in the vicinity of the height occupied 
 by the ancient convent of Sainte-Odile. As at Ten- 
 nichel, this cyclopean wall is formed of powerful 
 rocks, aligned and regularly built, and sometimes 
 presenting holes, doubtless used for trussing it up 
 with wooden braces. 
 
 Were these imposing megalithic structures of Al- 
 sace, whose remains may also be found upon many 
 other summits of the Vosges, independent of one 
 another, each belonging to a limited fortified area, 
 or were they all part of a common line of defence 
 established above the chief passes of the chain? 
 They fail to answer this question, but they offer 
 abundant proof that in the epoch of polished stone, 
 Alsace was inhabited by a people numerous enough 
 and energetic enough to carry out works thus ex- 
 tensive, and so astonishing from the view point of 
 the poverty of mechanical means that must have 
 sufficed for producing them. Unfortunately they 
 also prove, that in Alsace as elsewhere where ruined 
 fortifications are found, the people were thus early 
 exposed to the evils of war. 
 
 This fatal scourge of humanity always appears 
 as soon as there are formed at any distance apart, 
 groups of men, that are not bound together by com- 
 
44 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 mon ties. An accidental meeting between individ- 
 uals belonging to different groups, is enough to 
 bring about quarrels, rivalries and hatreds, which 
 all the other members of the respective tribes soon 
 make their own. It is also true that no community 
 of men ever exists without someone of their num- 
 ber coming to rule in it by reason of superior 
 strength, daring, or intelligence. Once risen to 
 leadership among his companions, he continually 
 seeks to gain authority over them, and to extend 
 the area of their dominions, to the disadvantage of 
 their neighbors. In this way the first warfare must 
 have arisen among prehistoric men; for they were 
 not led to be quarrelsome by drunkenness, of whose 
 excesses they were ignorant, nor by the desire of 
 seizing upon one another's riches, since of riches 
 they were all alike destitute. 
 
 The few preceding pages make it easy to under- 
 stand the sanguinary conflict which once broke out 
 between two tribes inhabiting severally the two ex- 
 tremities of the beautiful and picturesque Vosges 
 Valley of Saint Amarin. One of these tribes dwelt 
 at the head of the valley, above the point where the 
 Thur runs through the meadows that stretch out 
 between the flanks of the mountains, and by a deep 
 and voluminous fall plunges into a rocky basin 
 known in our time by the name of Haidenbad or 
 Pagan Bath. From the number of badgers' bur- 
 rows (terriers de blaireaux) in the vicinity, the little 
 clan under the chief Kerad had come to be known 
 as the Blairaks. Twenty kilometers away, in the 
 direction of the plain, and not far from the present 
 sites of the town of Thann and the village of Watt- 
 wilier, well known as a watering place, on account 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 45 
 
 of its mineral springs, lived the other tribe, a little 
 smaller in numbers than the first, and under the 
 patriarchal authority of Faroe. Their success as 
 hunters of the beavers (castors) in the ponds 
 formed along the borders of the Thur by the waters 
 from the neighboring hillsides and by the river's 
 overflow, had led them to choose the name of 
 Castrins. 
 
 One day when the men of the tribe were hunting 
 midway up the valley, they saw a deer break 
 through the brush at the edge of a wood they were 
 about to enter. They were near enough to reach it 
 with their arrows, two of which sufficed to bring it 
 to earth, and in a moment they were upon it and 
 had ended its life by a blow on the head. They then 
 saw for the first time that it bore in one of its but- 
 tocks the broken shaft of a third arrow, which must 
 have struck it only a short time before, as was evi- 
 dent from the freshness of the wound. Without 
 giving much heed to the matter, they rested awhile 
 beside their booty, and were preparing to take it 
 away, when they saw three hunters of the tribe of 
 the Blairaks advancing rapidly toward them; these 
 men had been following an hour or two along the 
 trail of the animal they had wounded, and now 
 claimed it on the ground that in the end it would 
 not have been able to escape them. The Castrins 
 pointed out that the wound was not so grave but 
 that the deer might have kept its liberty, perhaps 
 even have saved its life, and that consequently it 
 was the property of those who had killed it. The 
 conflicting claims of the two little groups of hunts- 
 men led to a discussion which became more and 
 more animated, grew into an exchange of epithets, 
 
46 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 and ended in a violent assault. One of the Castrins 
 was wounded and forced to flee with his companions, 
 who managed to get him back, weak from loss of 
 blood, to the dwelling place of their clan. 
 
 Their arrival produced a great commotion among 
 their clansmen. Indignation broke loose on all sides, 
 and only the resolution to take speedy vengeance 
 held the enraged and exasperated people under any 
 control. 
 
 On their side, the Blairaks did not fail to foresee 
 the reprisals they had to expect, and they judged it 
 necessary to take defensive measures. They threw 
 up barricades against the high rocks at the foot of 
 the mountain, and on top of these rocks they col- 
 lected great stones intended to be hurled down upon 
 an advancing enemy. To protect the approaches to 
 their station from the side of the valley, they 
 screened them by stockades of felled trees set 
 up in a serried row. In spite of the promptness with 
 which these works were executed, they were barely 
 finished when the scouts that had been despatched 
 in various directions beat a retreat to announce the 
 arrival of the enemy. 
 
 The fact was that a band of thirty Castrins had 
 stealthily advanced during the night, under cover 
 of the forest, in the hope of surprising the station 
 of the Blairaks in the early hours of the morning. 
 Believing their adversaries to be unsuspecting and 
 undefended, they boldly charged in the direction of 
 the dwellings which they knew to be accessible from 
 the side of the valley ; but they were checked by the 
 barricade of trees, and by a discharge of arrows 
 that showed the failure of their attempted surprise, 
 and the necessity of a fight. They bravely joined 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 47 
 
 battle, and across the leafy branches of the barri- 
 cade the arrows sped, wounding and killing both 
 assailants and defenders. On the side of the moun- 
 tain, the attack was no more fortunate, the stones 
 which the Blairaks hurled from the rocks overhead 
 preventing all approach there. The struggle was 
 thus reduced to a battle between the archers, and 
 could not end otherwise than with the retreat of 
 the Castrins. 
 
 At this point, one of the attacking party, Tamal, 
 the son of the Chief, noted among his companions 
 for his activity and daring, drew some of his fol- 
 lowers away toward the side of the mountain, and 
 persuaded them to climb it, in the hope of reaching 
 the summit of the rocks held by the beseiged, and 
 driving them out in a struggle whose success should 
 give victory to the Castrins. The little group of 
 men that executed this maneuvre, succeeded in ar- 
 riving on the rocks of which they hoped to gain 
 possession; but they found themselves outnumbered 
 by the opposing party, and after a hand to hand 
 encounter they were forced to flee, leaving Tamal 
 unconscious on the field, with an axe wound in 
 his breast. Thus repulsed at every point of their 
 attack, the Castrins retreated and returned to their 
 homes,bearing with them two dead and five wounded, 
 and leaving the body of Tamal at the mercy of their 
 enemies. 
 
 The brave youth, whom a few hours had trans- 
 formed from a hunter into a warrior, was now in 
 the hands of those he had so boldly attacked. He 
 was still unconscious, but the blood flowing from 
 his wound showed that he lived. A number of the 
 Blairaks would have put an end to him, in order 
 
48 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 to avenge the death of one of their own number 
 and the wounds of several others; but they were 
 restrained by their Chief, who was well enough satis- 
 fied by his victory, and wished to keep the young 
 warrior as a hostage, in case the Castrins should 
 meditate fresh attacks upon his tribe. He had 
 Tamal carried into an empty cabin, and confided 
 him to the care of some of the women, who stanched 
 his wound and dressed it with healing herbs that 
 they had learned to be efficacious. When after a 
 little time he came to himself, he was astonished and 
 gratified to be the object of so much care, and to 
 see among his nurses a beautiful young girl, called 
 Misie by her companions whom he soon learned to 
 be the daughter of Kerad. 
 
 Tamal's wound, not so bad as it appeared, was. 
 not to prove mortal ; he had been made unconscious 
 by the violence of the blow he had received and the 
 loss of blood. His extreme weakness and the sooth- 
 ing influence of the care given his wound, soon 
 plunged him into a profound sleep which lasted a 
 number of hours. When he awoke he saw the young 
 Misie on guard beside the bed of mosses and furs 
 where they had laid him. At once, she offered him 
 an herb tea, which he drank eagerly, to quench his 
 burning thirst, and then she gave him some very 
 simple food. After that, with another woman's aid, 
 she redressed his wound, and the relative comfort 
 all these attentions gave him brought sleep to Tamal 
 again. In this way a number of days were passed 
 between refreshing sleep and the assiduous care of 
 the two or three women, among whom Misie 
 showed the greatest zeal. Then his strength began 
 to return and his wound to heal, and the certainty 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 49 
 
 of his speedy recovery so cooled the ardor of his 
 nurses that had it not been for the constant solici- 
 tude of Misie, he would have been left almost to 
 himself. 
 
 The age in which these two young people lived 
 was already very remote and very different from 
 the one in which the attraction between the sexes 
 was almost wholly instinctive, the intelligence play- 
 ing little part. The men of this new human race, 
 considerably superior to those contemporaneous with 
 the mammoth and the reindeer, possessed ideas of a 
 more extended order, and their bent for improving 
 their implements and embellishing their ornaments, 
 make it evident that they were sensitive to the ef- 
 fect of form, and already capable, at least to a de- 
 gree, of appreciating the beauty of beings and 
 things. From these newly awakened faculties there 
 was sure to result an appreciable degree of eleva- 
 tion in the relation of the sexes. The matter of de- 
 liberate choice entered into it more largely, and so, 
 depending upon taste, it grew into a sentiment. To 
 assure the continuance of the race, nature had given 
 the primitive people of the earlier ages the mutual 
 affections of mother, father and child ; but she seems 
 to have reserved- for the posterity of their successors 
 the experience of love from sentiment and predilec- 
 tion. 
 
 This was the love which drew together Misie and 
 Tamal in their youth and beauty. Both had hair of 
 chestnut brown, fine and soft; great brown eyes, 
 oval faces richly tanned, and regular and symetrical 
 features, and they were alike tall and slim, with ele- 
 gance and grace in Misie and strength and added 
 stature in Tamal. Their faces differed in that the 
 
50 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 girl's was mobile and sweet, while the youth's was 
 calm and affable and given character by a full, short 
 beard, smooth and warm in tint. Misie could not 
 look upon her handsome wounded warrior and nurse 
 him without loving him; and Tamal, as his forces 
 returned, felt a passion for the engaging girl who 
 had saved his life, grow with his gratitude. 
 
 But if this was no longer the age of purely in- 
 stinctive attraction, no more was it one of hesitancy 
 in love, or of those unhappy passions which the ob- 
 stacles born of civilization have often engendered 
 later on. The young people confessed their love to 
 each other, and would have been entirely happy had 
 it not been for the grave circumstances under which 
 they had come to know and love one another. 
 
 Indeed, as soon as the recovery of Tamal became 
 complete, he would be taken from the care of Misie, 
 treated as a captive, watchfully guarded, and per- 
 haps even put to death, in case the Castrins at- 
 tempted a fresh attack upon the Blairaks. Terrified 
 at the thought of this threatening future, the girl 
 resolved to save her lover by aiding him to escape 
 before he should be really subjected to its dangers 
 by his recovery, and she confided to him her deter- 
 mination to send him away from her as soon as he 
 should be able to bear the journey. At first Tamal 
 stoutly refused to go unless she would consent to 
 follow him; but she assured him of her fixed de- 
 termination not to desert her tribe nor to leave her 
 father, who had no one belonging to him but her. 
 After long discussions, in which regret, tenderness, 
 the pain of separation and the hope of meeting again 
 when time should end the hostility between their 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 5 1 
 
 clans, were in turn in the ascendancy, Tamal at 
 length submitted to Misie's will. 
 
 She did not delay the carrying out of her plan, 
 but began by plausible pretexts to try to get rid of 
 the women who had hitherto aided her in caring 
 for Tamal, and above all to keep away the men, 
 who sometimes came to inform themselves of the 
 state of their prisoner. Then one dark night, after 
 making sure that all the members of the tribe were 
 asleep in their dwellings, she went to the cabin 
 where they had still left Tamal, whom they sup- 
 posed yet unable to leave it. This, however, he 
 made out to do, with Misie's help, and she silently 
 conducted him for some distance in the direction 
 he must take in order to return to the station of the 
 Castrins. Although cheered by their hopes for the 
 future, they found it very hard to part, and the ex- 
 pression of tenderness between them only increased 
 the hardship of the separation. After their adieux, 
 Misie slipped back unobserved to her home, and 
 Tamal made his way toward his, where after long 
 hours he arrived, overcome by fatigue and suffering. 
 He was received by his tribe with so much the more 
 joy because they had supposed him dead, and had 
 bewailed their inability to avenge him after their 
 defeat and the Blairaks' victory. 
 
 As for the Blairaks, they were greatly exasper- 
 ated by the escape of their prisoner, whom they had 
 thought too ill and weak to slip out of their hands, 
 and they never knew that it was due to the bravery 
 and devotion of Misie and to his own moral as well 
 as physical force. They did not miss him until it 
 was too late for pursuit. 
 
 In the hands of his mother, and surrounded by 
 
52 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 evidences of the devotion of his father and of the 
 other Castrins with whom he had fought so bravely 
 a few weeks before, Tamal soon fully regained his 
 strength. He learned with satisfaction that his tribe 
 had given up all idea of a fresh struggle with the 
 Blairaks, whom they considered to be protected from 
 any reprisals they might attempt, both by their su- 
 periority in numbers, and the advantageous posi- 
 tion of their village. In order to avoid any possible 
 conflict, the Castrins were careful not to go too far 
 up the valley, but made their hunting expeditions 
 in the direction of the plain. 
 
 Persuaded that no new act of hostility between 
 the two trioes was threatened, Tamal, at length com- 
 pletely recovered from his wound and the weakness 
 resulting from it, took up again the old course of 
 his life ; but he did not experience the satisfaction it 
 had hitherto given him. 
 
 Endowed with an intelligence superior to that of 
 others of his race, he was also in advance of them 
 in his moral ideas, and in the loftier sentiments in- 
 spired in him by gratitude for the care of Misie and 
 by the beauty of the girl whose tender affection had 
 perhaps saved his life, and had surely given him 
 his liberty. So the gracious image of her whom he 
 loved was always in his mind and heart, to distract 
 his attention from things around him, and to make 
 him indifferent to his occupations. Convinced that 
 some time must pass before such friendly relations 
 could be established between the Blairaks and the 
 Castrins that he might return to Misie and renew 
 the broken bonds of their courtship, he resolved to 
 leave his people and make a journey into far coun- 
 tries. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 53 
 
 His imagination had long been stirred by the as- 
 pect of grandeur the distant mountains wore for 
 him, when in the early morning or late afternoon 
 he turned his gaze in a direction midway between 
 the opposite points where the sun rose and set. What 
 he saw was the imposing chain of the Alps upborne 
 in air, with the immensities of their snowy flanks, 
 and their jagged crests whose countless ridges the 
 sun dyes with tints of pink and blue. He resolved 
 to go nearer to this marvelous spectacle, and to 
 carry out the project during the time which must 
 pass before he could again see Misie. 
 
 The preparations for his journey were soon made, 
 as he had nothing to carry but his weapons, his 
 ordinary garments and a few little bundles of dried 
 vegetable matter, to serve as tinder for the sparks 
 he should strike with his flint. 
 
 When he had said goodbye to his parents and the 
 other members of his tribe, and had promised not 
 to delay his return too long, he set out on his travels 
 by a route along the foothills of the Vosges. 
 
 It would be tedious to accompany him step by step 
 through his long pilgrimage; let it suffice to point 
 out in a general way how he was able to accomplish 
 it. His plan was to reach each day a new station 
 of the aborigines, where he rested and got the in- 
 formation necessary to guide him to the next sta- 
 tion on the day following. If the distance was too 
 great to be covered in one day's march, he camped 
 in the woods, or took refuge in some cavity of rock 
 or earth, or even established himself among the 
 great branches of a tree, as he often enough had 
 to do, in order to be safe from the attack of little 
 bands of wolves which were everywhere about. He 
 
54 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 came upon many swamps which he skirted, and 
 streams and rivers which he forded or crossed on 
 fallen trees, or even swam over, for he had known 
 how to swim from childhood, learning in those 
 pools near the station of his tribe, that are formed 
 by mountain streams or the overflow of the Thur. 
 
 He was generally well received in the habitations 
 scattered along the route he followed, and it some- 
 times even happened that he tarried two or three 
 days in a place; but elsewhere he had a bad recep- 
 tion, was suspected of some hostile intention, and 
 held captive until it became evident that his presence 
 had brought no misfortune. Once or twice he found 
 himself obliged to change his route in order to avoid 
 localities where two tribes were actually at war. 
 
 It was this last cause, which on the third day of 
 his journey, obliged him to turn away from the 
 Vosges and proceed in the direction of the plain, 
 making his way through the forests and openings 
 on the side of the rising sun. Beyond them he 
 crossed an undulating country interspersed with 
 hills, where he saw the source of the 111, the most 
 important river of Alsace. After two more day's 
 journeys, he arrived at the bank of a wide river, 
 whose strong, swift current filled him with wonder- 
 ment, and he followed up its course on his way to- 
 ward the distant mountains which he looked upon 
 as his journey's end. At different points as he went 
 along, he was deeply moved by the sight of the rap- 
 ids of Lauffen, the fine cataract of the Rhine, and 
 the imposing size of the Lake of Constance. But 
 greatly impressed as he was by the grandeur of 
 these aspects of nature, so new and strange to his 
 ignorance, he was still more wonderstruck at the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 55 
 
 sight of human habitations built over the very- 
 waters of the lake. 
 
 The young native of the Vosges was looking 
 upon a village of lake dwellers. A few feet from 
 the shore, long rows of piles began, great and high, 
 set vertically in the water. Upon these a platform 
 had been constructed of planks laid close together. 
 On this artificial ground, that lay outstretched at 
 almost a man's height above the level of the water, 
 stood in regular rows substantial thatched cottages 
 built of wood. In the open spaces between them 
 women and children were moving about, and old 
 people were sitting. On the lake, not far from this 
 village thus suspended between water and air, great 
 tree trunks that had been dug out their whole 
 length of seven or eight feet, were being propelled 
 over the surface by means of heavy sticks with a 
 wide flat surface at the end, in the hands of some of 
 the men in them, while others were casting out into 
 the water, to draw them in presently full of fish, 
 strange objects of limp and light material full of 
 holes, some of them outspread, others taking the 
 form of great pockets. 
 
 Such was the marvelous spectacle which offered 
 itself to Tamal's eyes, filling him with wonder and 
 delight. He approached, not without emotion, and 
 halted beside a man busy in straightening the posi- 
 tion of some movable planks which made a passage- 
 way from the shore to the aquatic town. 
 
 Tamal was kindly received among these people, 
 and spent several days with them, meanwhile ac- 
 quiring the craft of making the fish nets he had so 
 much admired on his arrival. His appreciation of 
 the things he saw here, awakened for the first time 
 
56 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 in his mind thought of the progress which man may 
 make in his work, and the new conception gave him 
 a glimpse of the good he might do for his tribe by 
 introducing among them improvements he might 
 see among people he had not yet visited. With his 
 thoughts tending in this direction, he gave up his 
 original plan of going to the great ice-topped 
 mountains, — whose long chain he now indeed saw 
 stretched out not far away, — and decided to con- 
 tinue his explorations in regions easier of access and 
 consequently more populous. 
 
 The farther away he went from his native place 
 the more difficult Tamal found it to talk under- 
 standingly with the inhabitants of the regions he 
 passed through; nevertheless, when he left the 
 strange village of the Lake of Constance, — over 
 whose waters, as he learned, there were thirty 
 others like it, — he was able to inform himself suffi- 
 ciently well to direct his way toward the villages 
 of the Lake of Zurich, and again, in leaving there, 
 to reach some towns of the same nature on the 
 Lakes of Birne, Lempach and Morat. And here 
 he found a new subject for wonder and admiration. 
 
 This was the making of weapons and tools, not 
 from polished flint but from a material only just 
 beginning to be known, which was obtained by ex- 
 posing to an ardent heat a mixture of charcoal with 
 two mineral substances that in our day are called 
 copper pyrites and oxide of tin. 
 
 From this mixture there resulted a fusible sub- 
 stance, which, being run into moulds hollowed out 
 of sand or earth, formed axes, spear points, arrow- 
 heads, knives, daggers, fish hooks, various house- 
 hold utensils, and more delicate objects such as bod- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. S7 
 
 kins, pins and needles, and ornamental pieces. These 
 were the first fruits of the discovery of bronze. 
 
 Tamal prolonged his stay among the possessors 
 of this earliest metal wealth, until he had been given 
 specimens of it in exchange for the zeal with which 
 he had worked in it himself; then he again turned 
 westward, and making the Jura passes, he found 
 himself once more in France, where he had been 
 told there were also many lake dwellers, in Savoy 
 and along the banks of the two rivers that to-day 
 we call the Isere and the Saone. 
 
 For a long time Tamal continued his explora- 
 tions of the regions to the west of the Jura and 
 Alps, making observations of the progress that had 
 been made by the tribes inhabiting them. In some 
 places he saw the first attempts at agriculture, in 
 the cultivation of plants producing nourishing 
 seeds. After being carefully gathered, these seeds 
 were crushed by means of a smooth oval stone, in 
 a larger stone which had been hollowed out like a 
 trough, and the flour resulting from the process, 
 mixed with water, made a paste, that was baked 
 into little cakes on flat stones heated in the fire. 
 
 Frequently Tamal found in general use pottery 
 made of soft clay which had been baked and hard- 
 ened by the heat of fire, or simply in the sun. And 
 then, among the most intelligent of these people, he 
 was equally astonished and delighted by the sight 
 of sheep, goats, and even some oxen of the urus 
 tribe, reduced to a state of domestication; and, best 
 of all, dogs obedient to man and affectionately at- 
 tached to him. 
 
 It would have been to Tamal like the coming 
 true of a beautiful dream, if he might have taken 
 
58 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 back with him to his own country some of these 
 various animals; but he saw the impossibility of 
 that, and thought himself fortunate to get posses- 
 sion of a pair of young dogs, and to have them 
 follow him to his journey's end. 
 
 This journey had lasted for fifteen months, when 
 Tamal finally returned to his tribe. He was re- 
 ceived with transports of delight, which turned into 
 manifestations of the greatest enthusiasm when the 
 story of his travels was told, and the things he had 
 brought back were displayed. Especially admired 
 were the dogs, in form and size, in their erect ears 
 and their tawny coats, so much like the wolves, yet 
 as gentle and affectionate as the wolves were wild 
 and ferocious. 
 
 Tamal was rejoiced to learn that friendly rela- 
 tions had been re-established between the two tribes 
 of his native valley, and waiting only to pass a few 
 days with his parents, he hastened away to his well- 
 beloved Misie, returning to the Blairaks, not as a 
 captive now, but as a friend, and the bearer of use- 
 ful knowledge. Already informed of the success 
 of his wanderings, Kerad and his tribe received 
 him joyfully, and were not surprised at the signs 
 of affection given him by Misie as she led him to 
 her father's cabin. 
 
 Among the treasures he had brought back from 
 his journey were three bronze axes. He had given 
 one to Faroe, he now offered another to Kerad, re- 
 serving the third for his own use. To this rich 
 present he added a lance head, two arrowheads, a 
 knife, and a dagger, of the same metal, and into 
 the hands of his beloved he put bodkins, pins, 
 needles, and a necklace of bronze disks strung on 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 59 
 
 a cord, whose metallic splendor surpassed anything 
 hitherto seen in the valley of Saint-Amarin. 
 
 Rejoicing in the possession of his new weapons, 
 Kerad left his hut to offer them to the general ad- 
 miration, and finding themselves alone together, 
 Tamal and Misie rushed into each others arms. 
 Their joy is not difficult to imagine, especially that 
 of Misie, who had carried all this time in her mem- 
 ory a picture of the Tamal wounded, weak and 
 suffering, whom she had painfully helped along his 
 homeward journey; while now she felt round her 
 the strong arms of this fine and sturdy explorer, 
 whose travels were the admiration of everybody. 
 
 A few days later, Tamal, accompanied by his 
 father, came to ask of Kerad the hand of Misie. 
 It was quickly granted him, to the mutual satisfac- 
 tion of the tribes, and in each of them the custo- 
 mary betrothal feast was promptly given. This 
 feast was preceded by the ceremony of the sacri- 
 fices which the betrothed man and woman were re- 
 quired to make to the genii or Superior Spirits in 
 whom the men of that epoch had already adopted 
 a belief. Under the guidance of the two most aged 
 men of their tribes, Tamal and Misie went first to 
 the cascade of the Heidenbad, and threw various 
 small objects into the basin where it plunges from 
 the rocks above, as an offering to the Genius of 
 Water; then they turned to lay some fruit and 
 portions of small game at the foot of one of the 
 largest oaks in the neighboring forest, as an act of 
 homage to the Spirit of the Woods; and to crown 
 all, on a sacrificial pile erected near the station of 
 Misie's tribe, they burned bunches of flowers, small 
 leafy branches, tufts of grass and mosses and por- 
 
60 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 tions of birds, as a pious rite before the Spirit of 
 Winds and Storms. 
 
 In spite of the intoxicating joy of at last possess- 
 ing Misie, Tamal did not lose his interest in the 
 progressive ideas he had got on his travels, nor in 
 his projects to better the conditions of life among 
 his fellows of the Vosges; and he found a number 
 of followers among the younger men. As a result 
 of his advice, groups of Castrins and Blairaks set 
 out at frequent intervals to journey into- distant 
 quarters in search of new things, and especially to 
 get possession of domestic animals. In groups of 
 two, at Tamal's suggestion, they scattered in dif- 
 ferent directions by routes leading to the south and 
 west of their native country. These expeditions 
 were continued for a number of years, and were 
 more or less successful, never failing to be of some 
 utility. 
 
 The intellectual superiority of Tamal, the knowl- 
 edge he had acquired, and his efforts in behalf of 
 their greater welfare so endeared him to the in- 
 habitants of the valley, that with the consent of 
 his father and Misie's he was chosen supreme head 
 of the two tribes, which thenceforth, in spite of 
 the distance between their stations, were merged in- 
 to one. 
 
 Thus long years rolled by, bringing with them 
 ever increasing betterment of conditions. The dwell- 
 ings were roomier and better constructed; the hun- 
 ters had the companionship of vigorous dogs, the 
 progeny of the two brought back from his wander- 
 ings by Tamal, which aided them in the chase, even 
 when they pursued bears, wolves, the aurochs, or 
 the wild boar. The crop of wild fruits gathered 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 6 1 
 
 in the forests was larger, more varied and better 
 husbanded; some attempts at the cultivation of 
 nourishing roots began to succeed ; many goats and 
 sheep were pastured about the two villages, and 
 some calves had just been introduced. Weapons 
 and utensils of bronze were gradually finding their 
 way among these people, and coming into more 
 general use. 
 
 It was not until they had seen all these changes 
 gradually accomplished, that Tamal and Misie, 
 weighed down with years, died in the arms of 
 their children, carrying with them to their graves 
 the regret of all the members of their tribes, and 
 even of neighboring hordes, that the improvements 
 introduced in the valley of Saint-Amarin had not 
 left without emulation, nor without some successful 
 attempts at imitation. 
 
62 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 FIFTH VIEW. 
 
 The bronze age. — Progress and the iron age. — End of pre- 
 historic times. — The Iberians. — The Celts. — The Aquitan- 
 ians. — The Ligurians. — The Massaliotes. — The Cimbri. — 
 Gallic expeditions. 
 
 The use of polished stone among the hordes of 
 Europe continued no longer than was required for 
 the establishment of the use of bronze, which was 
 its superior in all ways, being better adapted to the 
 manufacture of weapons and utensils, and at the 
 same time more serviceable. One great advantage 
 of this metal is the ease with which it may be forged 
 and manipulated generally, when it has been sud- 
 denly cooled, while gradual cooling renders it hard 
 and durable; thus it can be shaped at will by the 
 first process, and hardened after the desired form 
 has been attained. 
 
 Bronze foundries and manufactories were estab- 
 lished at different points where the necessary crude 
 material was to be procured, and constituted an im- 
 portant industry of the period, which was followed 
 by a corresponding and not less beneficial commer- 
 cial development extending to all the European 
 tribes. The relations thus formed among these peo- 
 ples, were strengthened and multiplied by the in- 
 terest roused in the possession and propagation of 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 63 
 
 domestic animals and cultivated plants, of which at 
 first only a few tribes had learned to avail them- 
 selves. These two things may be looked upon as 
 having produced the very germs of civilization and 
 of the transformation of the life of the chase into 
 pastoral and agricultural life. 
 
 In order to show the progress made during the 
 bronze age, it is only necessary to refer to traces 
 of it that have been found by the exploration of 
 tumuli in some of those dolmens which time has 
 denuded of the heaped-up earth originally covering 
 them; or among the remains of the lake dwellers' 
 towns. The number and variety of weapons, uten- 
 sils, and ornaments such as necklaces and bracelets, 
 and of small implements like pins, needles and bod- 
 kins, are most remarkable. 
 
 In place of the crude pottery, misshapen and cov- 
 ered with corrugations, which belonged to the age 
 of polished stone, the men of the bronze age made 
 vases and other things out of terra cotta, fine in 
 texture, with a smooth surface, and in a variety of 
 shapes, frequently ornamented with designs, and 
 sometimes of sufficiently great dimensions to serve 
 as receptacles for grain. 
 
 The presence of a number of these large jars, 
 with some of their contents, proves conclusively, as 
 also does that of bronze sickles, that during this 
 period barley, wheat, and oats were cultivated. The 
 grains were no longer crushed in a stone trough by 
 using a smooth stone as a pestle, but the device of a 
 stationary mill-stone with a free one turning upon 
 it by means of a transverse lever, was already 
 known. 
 
 From the fibres of bark, the men of this age made 
 
64 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 ropes and cords to be woven into fish nets, while 
 from those of flax and afterward of hemp, they 
 achieved the making of threads which they had the 
 ingenuity to weave into cloth, and this now began 
 to take the place of skins for clothing. The dis- 
 covery of a number of coffins in a tumulus in Den- 
 mark, has also made it clear that in this country at 
 least the art of spinning wool was already known; 
 for the body in one of them had been wrapped in 
 woolen garments. 
 
 The possession of domestic animals and culti- 
 vated plants, added very considerable resources to 
 those of hunting and fishing for the nutrition of 
 the men of the age of bronze. In the early part of 
 the epoch, they continued to bury their dead in 
 tumuli and dolmens, with weapons and implements 
 beside them; but toward its close they began to 
 cremate the bodies of the dead, and to enclose the 
 ashes in urns. A number of these urns have been 
 recently discovered, and we shall cite a remarkable 
 example, found in the exploration of a tumulus near 
 Lubeck. In the upper stratum of this tumulus, in 
 the loose earth, a skeleton was buried together with 
 some iron implements; two meters below were 
 found small stone receptacles holding mortuary 
 urns and filled with calcined bones mingled with 
 necklaces, pins and a knife, all of bronze. At the 
 bottom of the tumulus were stone slabs forming a 
 cave-like structure that contained human bones and 
 axes of rough flint. 
 
 These superimposed sepulchres well represent the 
 order of succession of the rough stone, the bronze, 
 and the iron ages, and they would tell a complete 
 story if a fourth, containing articles made from pol- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 65 
 
 ished stone, were found between those of the ages 
 of bronze and of rough stone. 
 
 The discovery of iron was altogether more com- 
 plicated than that of bronze, the former not being 
 fusible in even the most ardent heat employed in the 
 earlier age. It was extracted by processes still to 
 be seen in operation among the tribes of Northern 
 Tartary and of Senegal. A stone oven was built 
 into the side of a hillock, and was charged first with 
 wood, then with thin alternate layers of charcoal 
 and the very common minerals formed by oxides of 
 iron. This mixture was covered by a vaulted roof 
 of earth, with an opening at the summit; then 
 through an opening beneath, fire was set to the 
 wood. By this process, the charcoal was made to 
 deoxidize the iron, and little porous masses of the 
 reduced metal were deposited at the bottom of the 
 furnace. By uniting a sufficient number of these, 
 raising them to a glowing heat, and repeatedly ham- 
 mering them out, they were welded into lumps, and 
 then, by a series of similar operations, into bars of 
 iron suitable for fashioning into any desired shape, 
 under the action of fire and the hammer. 
 
 At first the use of iron was intermingled with 
 that of bronze, as the use of bronze had originally 
 been associated with that of polished stone and 
 horn. In the iron age, gold, silver and lead began 
 to be known, and also the art of making pottery on 
 a wheel, which had hitherto been shaped by hand. 
 The more or less complete incineration of the body 
 was the burial practice. 
 
 Before the close of the iron age, industries and 
 commerce had made considerable progress, as had 
 also farming and grazing, mules and pigs having 
 
66 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 been added to the sheep, goats, cattle and horses of 
 earlier times. Even the use of small bronze coins 
 has been attributed to this early age. 
 
 It was through great upheavals of the European 
 territory, that the race contemporary with the mam- 
 moth and the reindeer disappeared from that part 
 of the world at the close of the age of rough stone, 
 to give place to the Aryans, who were characterized 
 by the use of polished stone. On the other hand, it 
 was by slow and almost insensible transitions, that 
 humanity passed from this age to that of bronze, 
 from the bronze age to the iron age, and finally in- 
 to the ages revealed to us by the earliest annals of 
 peoples. 
 
 The opening pages of history give the name of 
 Iberians to the inhabitants of the countries toward 
 which our eyes are turned, and they tell us that two 
 thousand years before the modern era, their country 
 was invaded from the north by the Celts, Gaels or 
 Gauls. These latter drove the Iberians back across 
 the Garonne, pursuing them even into Spain. Here 
 pursued and pursuers eventually settled together, 
 establishing an amalgamated race, the Celtiberians. 
 The Iberians, however, under the name of Aquitan- 
 ians, remained the dominent race to the south of 
 the Garonne and in the Pyrenees region, and also 
 along the Mediterranean snores, under the name of 
 Ligurians. 
 
 The Ligurian people held important commercial 
 relations with the Phoenicians a thousand years be- 
 fore Christ, and the founding of Nimes and Alesia 
 is even attributed to the latter people. To the 
 Phoenicians succeeded the Rhodians, whose settle- 
 ments had lost all importance when the Phocaeans 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 6? 
 
 under Euxenus came to found Massilia or Mar- 
 seille, six hundred years before the Christian era. 
 
 At the same time the Cimbri, under the leader- 
 ship of Hu-le-puissant, descended upon the north of 
 Gaul. They were not able to dispossess the Gauls 
 of their territory, and only succeeded in mingling 
 with them in the western sections, along the ocean, 
 and in some unimportant portions of the interior, 
 which for the most part remained entirely Celtic, as 
 did all the eastern section bounded by the Jura and 
 the Rhine. 
 
 It was from these latter regions that there set 
 forth, in the year 587 B. C, the two great ex- 
 peditions of the Sigovaci and the Bellovaci, the 
 former of whom went to found a colony on the 
 banks of the Danube, at the foot of the Illyrian 
 Alps, and the latter to found Cisalpine Gaul, in the 
 north of Italy. 
 
 In the year 39 B. C, thirty thousand Gallic 
 Senones, led by their chief or Bran, overcame a 
 Roman army on the banks of the Allia and cap- 
 tured Rome, whose last defenders were intrenched 
 within the walls. After having laid waste the city 
 and plundered it, they were driven out by the suc- 
 cessful onslaught of Camillus, and a greater part of 
 them were massacred. 
 
 A hundred years later, an army of Tectosages 
 went out from among the Gauls to pillage Mace- 
 donia and Greece, and established themselves in 
 Asia Minor, in the country which took from them 
 the name af Galatia. 
 
 At different periods of this epoch, great numbers 
 of Gallic warriors served as mercenaries in the 
 armies of the kings of Asia, who were quarreling 
 
68 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 over their shares in the heritage of Alexander the 
 Great, and also in the armies of Pyrrhus and of 
 Hannibal. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 69 
 
 SIXTH VIEW. 
 
 The Gauls two centuries before the modern era. — Their 
 characteristics; and customs. — Patricians, Driuds and peo- 
 ple. — Gallic divinities. — The Gallic nations of Alsace. 
 Struggles with the Germans. — Characteristic episode: 
 Rodwig and Diela. 
 
 Two hundred years before our own time, the 
 Gauls no longer formed a single nation, mingling 
 together and living under the same customs and 
 with the same institutions — Iberians, Gaels and 
 Cimbri alike. This great people did not now know 
 anything like unity, but were divided into nearly 
 eighty distinct sections, which were governed by 
 their respective chiefs, known generally as Vergo- 
 breti. 
 
 The greater part of the country was covered with 
 forests, and in their natural openings or in artificial 
 clearings, the Gauls set up their houses of wood and 
 thatch, and formed their villages, surrounding them 
 by palisades of pickets and madriers. The extent 
 of cultivated ground about these villages was pro- 
 portional to their importance. The towns, already 
 numerous, were strongly fortified and also sur- 
 rounded by cultivated fields. 
 
 Sheltered by the vast forests, the land abounded 
 in springs, brooks, swamps, and water courses, 
 
70 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 which rendered the climate moist and the atmos- 
 phere frequently heavy and tempestuous. 
 
 The inhabitants of the country were tall and 
 hardy, well built and very active. -They had clear 
 cut, oval faces, with fair skin, brown or blue eyes, 
 and hair brown, blonde or sometimes red, which 
 they wore long, raising it above the head in the 
 form of horns. They allowed a long and heavy 
 moustache to cover the upper lip, and their whole 
 aspect was one of alertness and the strength which 
 is demanded and developed by the habits of hunters 
 and warriors. 
 
 ' They lived upon acorns and other forest fruits, 
 bread, milk, butter, cheese, the flesh of their do- 
 mestic animals, especially pork, and numerous kinds 
 of game, of which the aurochs, deer, and wild boar 
 were the most sought after. For fermented drinks, 
 they had beer made by the fermentation of barley, 
 and hydromel, which they obtained from that of 
 honey. 
 
 The garments of the Gauls consisted of breeches, 
 covering the leg; a shirt, a short tunic falling no 
 lower than the knee and resembling our modern 
 blouse; a surtout or short cloak, and leather foot- 
 gear. The women's costume differed from the men's 
 in the greater length of the tunic, and the addition of 
 necklaces, bracelets, rings and a girdle. 
 
 The chief weapons and armor of the Gallic war- 
 riors were swords, axes, daggers, lances, javelins, 
 shields, and different kinds of helmets, generally 
 without crests. Some of the Gauls fought on foot, 
 others on horseback, and still others in chariots 
 drawn by two horses, which they also used in bar- 
 ricading their camps. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 7 1 
 
 The Roman historians, their enemies, pictured 
 our ancestors as naturally kind and hospitable, 
 faithful friends, sincere and loyal, scorning subter- 
 fuge and lies, brave even to rashness, prompt in 
 initiative, endowed with an active and penetrating 
 mind and a vivid imagination, liking to talk and to 
 listen, highly inquisitive, given to railing and jok- 
 ing, and great lovers of liberty; but at the same 
 time the contemporary chronicles accused them of 
 being careless, fickle, boastful, hot-headed, quarrel- 
 some, inclined to drunkenness, and barbaric in their 
 superstitions. Such as they were, they treated the 
 women of their households with great respect, con- 
 sulting them in even the weightiest matters, and 
 often taking them into war. 
 
 They were dexterous workers in metals, glass, 
 pottery and woven fabrics, and they appear to 
 have been the inventors of wheeled ploughs, horse- 
 hair sieves, and hooped casks. 
 
 Their funerals were conducted with much pomp, 
 and articles to which the dead had been attached 
 were burned with their bodies, as were domestic 
 animals, slaves, and sometimes even relatives. The 
 most cruel sacrifices were not repugnant to these 
 men, and they thought to appease the anger of their 
 gods and save the lives of the sick, by putting some 
 dependent to death. On more general and import- 
 ant occasions, they sacrificed a number of -victims at 
 a time, shutting them up in a wicker cage made to 
 imitate the human form, which was placed on a 
 sacrificial pile, and the torch applied. 
 
 Each of the Gallic nations was made up of 
 Druids, Patricians, and the common people, and 
 matters of general interest were treated only in as- 
 
J2. ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 semblies of the three classes. The aristocracy com- 
 prised the tribal chiefs, the chiefs of clans, the 
 heads of rich families, those warriors having no 
 other occupation than that of arms, and citizens dis- 
 tinguished by extensive commercial or business re- 
 lations. The popular class was formed by various 
 grades of working men, small tradesmen, farmers, 
 freedmen and servants; below these, in the lowest 
 ranks, were men reduced to the state of slavery. 
 
 The Druids were the ministers of religion, di- 
 rected both public and private sacrifices, interpreted 
 omens, judged criminals, settled questions of in- 
 heritance, and taught the youth. Exempt from the 
 payment of taxes, and from all civil and military 
 duties, the Druids held a great assembly once a 
 year in the country of the Carnutes, at Chartres, 
 where the chief of this powerful fraternity had his 
 residence. There were Druidesses as well as Druids, 
 who wore a costume of white linen, fastened around 
 the body by a metal girdle. . They predicted future 
 events by observing stars and meteors and the en- 
 trails of human victims. Some of them took the 
 vow of perpetual virginity. 
 
 Connected with the order of the Druids was that 
 of the bards, whose task was to chant in verse the 
 praises of the gods, the beauties of nature, and the 
 glories of war ; and there was also an inferior order 
 of priests, the euhages, who assisted the Druids in 
 the practice of their cult, of which one of the most 
 important was gathering with a golden sickle, in 
 the midst of an elaborate religious ceremonial, the 
 boughs of mistletoe that sometimes adorned the 
 oaks. 
 
 The chief gods worshipped by the Gauls were 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 73 
 
 Hesus, the supreme god; Teutates, god of war and 
 of the intelligence; Belinus, god of medicine and 
 wisdom; Agmius, god of eloquence; Tarania, god 
 of thunder; and there were numerous inferior 
 deities, more or less local, such as Rhenus, god of 
 the Rhine, and Vosges, god of the Vosges. The 
 Gauls believed in the immortality of the soul, and 
 believed so firmly that they loaned one another 
 money upon the sole condition of its being repaid 
 in course of the new existence into which they were 
 to enter after death. 
 
 Such were the moral and intellectual conditions 
 under which the Gallic people lived, two centuries 
 before Christ, conditions modified more or less by 
 circumstances peculiar to the different regions, as 
 was the case in the Alsatian plain. 
 
 The Rhine, which separates that plain from the 
 Germans, by the violence of its current and the 
 overflow of its waters, prevented the settling of the 
 west bank as thickly as would have been necessary 
 to guarantee it against the aggressions of these bar- 
 barians, always eager for pillage and plunder. Fed 
 by the numerous tributary rivers, whose current and 
 volume were increased by the climatic conditions of 
 the times, the river spread its tide hither and yon 
 over the lowlands along its course, and encompassed 
 with its arms numerous islands and far-stretching 
 swamps. So the river borders began to be habit- 
 able only at some distance inward, which necessi- 
 tated on the part of the Gauls of the Alsatian plain 
 a vigilance unremitting and difficult to maintain, 
 and helped to make them, like all frontiersmen, 
 more disposed to war and more accustomed to it 
 than the people of the interior. 
 
74 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Three of the Gallic tribes extended -their territory 
 as far as the Rhine; to the south, the Rauraci, 
 whose possessions lay about the northern portion of 
 the Jura, and whose capital, Rauricum, was situated 
 two leagues away from Basel; next, the Sequani, 
 who occupied Franche-Comte and the southern ex- 
 tremity of Lorraine, having for their capital city 
 Vesontium (Besancon), and possessing many towns 
 in Alsace — Cambe, Brisiacus, Olinus and Argentov- 
 aria (Colmar) ; and to the north the Mediomatrici, 
 who held all the upper portion of Alsace and the 
 greater part of Lorraine, as far as the region of 
 Spire and Treves, with Divodurum (Metz) for the 
 capital, and for chief towns in Alsace, Helvetium, 
 Broemages, Saletes, and Argentoratum (Stras- 
 bourg). Later, in the time of Caesar, or a little 
 before, the Mediomatrici were obliged to cede the 
 northern extremity of the Alsatian plain to a tribe 
 of Germanic orgin called Triboces, who, together 
 with the Gallic nations, merged into the Gallo- 
 Roman state. 
 
 In these later days of Gallic independence, the 
 three nations established on the west bank of the 
 Rhine had to sustain the long and almost incessant 
 struggle which the more barbarous Teutons kept 
 alive in the hope of gaining possession of the richer 
 and more fertile lands occupied by their neighbors. 
 Even at times when the two great peoples, always 
 hostile, were at peace or under a truce, it frequent- 
 ly happened that some group of warriors from a 
 Germanic Rhenish tribe, eager for glory and 
 plunder, would cross the river and attempt 
 depredations on the Gallic side. Their presence 
 was quickly made known, and they were steadily 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 75 
 
 withstood, till they were forced to return to their 
 own country. 
 
 It was on such adventure bent, that a band of 
 Germans, after having attacked one of the rare 
 Gallic villages near the river banks, were pursued 
 by a troop of Mediomatrici to the Sequanian 
 frontier, where some of this latter nation's horse- 
 men promptly rallied to the support of their fellow 
 Gauls. The Germans, now inferior in numbers, 
 exhausted by privations, and relentlessly hunted 
 down, were driven from forest to forest, from 
 island to island, and at last were brought to bay on 
 ground encircled by the waters of the Rhine itself. 
 Cut off now for many days from the barks which 
 had brought them over, and unable to retreat fur- 
 ther, they accepted the challenge to battle, and 
 fought courageously until thirty or more of them 
 were either killed or wounded. 
 
 Among those most seriously injured was the 
 young Thorwald, son of the chief of a clan of the 
 Mediomatrici, that was established in the foothills 
 of Mount Altitona (Sainte-Odile). In the thick of 
 the fight, he had charged with his lance upon a Ger- 
 man of colossal size; but he was checked by his 
 enemy, whose long and heavy sword beat down his 
 weapon, and though slightly bent from its course 
 by his shield, penetrated deep into his left side. 
 Just as he was about to fall, and to receive a sec- 
 ond thrust, inevitably mortal, he was rescued by the 
 prompt and dexterous aid of one of his comrades in 
 arms. A Sequanian horseman named Rodwig had 
 just overcome one of the enemy, when he saw the 
 danger threatening Thorwald a little distance away. 
 Gathering his horse together for a prodigious leap, 
 
j6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 he hurled it upon the German, whom he struck 
 down and pinned to the earth with his lance. The 
 combat was now ending in the fall of the last of the 
 Germans, and Thorwald's rescuer had nothing to 
 do but dismount and give his attention to the youth 
 whom he had so opportunely aided. 
 
 The poor fellow's condition was so serious that 
 it was quite apparent he could not be taken to his 
 home, but must be hurried to the nearest Sequanian 
 village, in which it chanced Rodwig lived; and 
 Rodwig and his companions hastened away, bear- 
 ing on litters of branches the dead body of one of 
 their warriors, another too gravely wounded to sit 
 upon his horse, and Thorwald almost dying. 
 
 After they were gone, the remaining Gauls threw 
 into the waters of the Rhine the German dead and 
 those whose wounds prevented them from march- 
 ing; separated the survivors of the enemy into 
 groups, having first disarmed them and charged them 
 with the bonds of the slavery they were destined to 
 experience west of the Vosges; made them bear 
 away two dead and two wounded Mediomatrici, 
 and set out to rejoin their clan at the foot of Mount 
 Altitona, where they arrived at the end of the third 
 day. 
 
 It took the Sequanians only a few hours to return 
 to their village and establish Thorwald in the home 
 of Rodwig, where he received the care of a priest 
 versed in the art of healing, of a number of women 
 used to relieving the sufferings of war, and es- 
 pecially of him who was prodigal with his hospi- 
 tality and with evidences of the most lively interest. 
 
 Under these favorable conditions, Thorwald's re- 
 covery was rapid, and three weeks had hardly 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. "JJ 
 
 passed, when he had gained sufficient strength to 
 return to his home. These few days had also 
 sufficed to establish a sincere and firm friendship be- 
 tween the two young men, which deepened as each 
 discovered in the other the qualities he himself pos- 
 sessed — youth and beauty, brightness and mirthful- 
 ness, candor, loyalty, kindness, generosity and cour- 
 age. Although Rodwig had but an obscure po- 
 sition in the middle class of the men of title or mili- 
 tary rank in his clan, while Thorwald was the son 
 of a rich and powerful chief, they were both in- 
 sensible to this difference in station, and it gave like 
 satisfaction to them both, when, upon the insistence 
 of the wounded youth, the Sequanian promised to 
 go with him to his home and remain there for some 
 time. 
 
 When once this plan was resolved upon, Thor- 
 wald was so impatient for the pleasure of it, that he 
 eagerly hastened its execution, though as yet he had 
 regained but a part of his usual strength. They 
 must go! To this Rodwig consented, but on con- 
 dition that they should take two days for the jour- 
 ney which the two fine horses he was going to use 
 could easily have made in one. 
 
 The arrival of the youths caused great joy in the 
 clan of Altitona, where Thorwald was greatly be- 
 loved, and with the effusive tenderness lavished up- 
 on him by his father, his mother, and his sister, 
 were mingled the expressions of gratitude and ap- 
 preciation which these three people hastened to be- 
 stow upon his rescuer. 
 
 So several days of perfect happiness passed by; 
 but presently Thorwald saw that Rodwig was no 
 longer sharing in the full enjoyment of the others, 
 
78 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 and that in spite of his efforts to conceal his feel- 
 ings, his usual merry and open disposition was fre- 
 quently clouded by moments of seriousness and 
 silent reserve. Troubled by this change in his 
 friend, Thorwald demanded the cause of it, but was 
 assured that there was no other than the thought of 
 their approaching separation. 
 
 And yet, Rodwig was disturbed by an agitation 
 strange to him, which he tried to quiet, and which 
 distressed him the more, the more he endeavored to 
 hide it; for he did try, preferring for once, in 
 obedience to the dictates of loyalty, to be lacking in 
 frankness. The intimacy to which he had been ad- 
 mitted in the family of Thorwald, gave him op- 
 portunities to perceive very early the charms of 
 mind and character which made the more attractive 
 the grace and beauty of his friend's young . sister, 
 Diela. Satisfied in the beginning to observe and 
 admire this gifted, amiable, and fascinating daugh- 
 ter of the Gauls, he now felt drawn to her by an ir- 
 resistible love. After vainly trying to overcome 
 the feeling, hitherto unknown to him, he submitted 
 to it, but with the firm resolve of concealing it in 
 the depths of his heart; for he considered his po- 
 sition hopeless. In fact,* possessed of only modest 
 means, it was not fit that he should aspire to a con- 
 nection with the wealthy family of Thorwald; and 
 this difference in fortune was even less important 
 than the difference in rank which separated him, a 
 simple warrior of the Sequani, from the powerful 
 Chief of the Mediomatrici ; moreover, could he help 
 fearing that, should he make known to these peo- 
 ple, who had received him so affectionately, the love 
 he dared to entertain, he would lay himself open to 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 79 
 
 the suspicion of self interest, and of a desire to be 
 recompensed for the service he had rendered to 
 Thorwald ? 
 
 As firm in keeping his resolutions as he was ready 
 in making them and putting them into execution, 
 Rodwig after taking a most affectionate farewell, 
 left his friend's hospitable home, where he had had 
 so much enjoyment, and returned to his own vil- 
 lage, after an absence of not more than a month. 
 Here he took up the ordinary affairs of his life, 
 without allowing himself to give way to the disap- 
 pointment from which he suffered. He did not, 
 like the Troubadours and Trouveres, later on, feel 
 the need of putting into song the pains of unre- 
 quited love, but contented himself with concealing 
 in his heart his feelings for the fair Diela. The 
 only change observable in him was that the life, 
 gaiety, and carelessness which had characterized him 
 hitherto, had given place to a quieter and more seri- 
 ous manner, with some tendency to soltitude. Thus 
 a year passed, without other incident than an oc- 
 :asional meeting with Thorwald, in the home of the 
 one or the other, or on the hunting ground, which 
 had only served to render their friendship the more 
 faithful and unalterable. 
 
 One day Thorwald came to tell Rodwig that Diela, 
 having arrived at the age of twenty, must pres- 
 ently choose a husband from a number of young 
 men who aspired to that honor; that upon the oc- 
 casion, there would be a great feast in his family, 
 and at its end, his sister, in accordance with the es- 
 tablished custom, would make known which one of 
 the suitors she preferred. To this announcement, 
 which Rodwig heard without betraying his feelings, 
 
80 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Thorwald added that he was sure his best friend 
 would be present at the betrothal, and that he 
 should expect him at least two days in advance. It 
 was a hard test for poor Rodwig, but he did not 
 quail in the face of it, and two days before the feast 
 day when he was to see Diela give herself a master, 
 he was with her and her family, and in the midst of 
 a number of young men all desirous of gaining the 
 good graces of the beautiful maid of the Medio- 
 matrici. 
 
 The morning after his arrival, Rodwig found 
 himself with a score of young warriors in a clear- 
 ing near the village, whither Thorwald had taken 
 them for some of their customary exercises and 
 sports, a number of slaves going along to serve 
 them with beer and hydromel. It was a varied and 
 interesting crowd. Some, among whom was Rod- 
 wig, were reclining on wolf skins, chatting gaily 
 over their hunting exploits; other groups were ab- 
 sorbed in the games of chance dear to the Gauls, or 
 contending in trials of skill or strength, which gave 
 rise to betting among the contestants. It was a 
 question of making the most prodigiously high or 
 the longest leap; of running most rapidly round a 
 given course; of hurling the spear most accurately 
 or shooting best with arrows, or of making the 
 most vigorous blow with an ax or a sword. The 
 joy of the victors and the protests and facetious 
 sallies of the vanquished, filled the place with 
 animation and laughter, which were only checked 
 for a moment to listen to the proposal of a new 
 trial of strength, made by one of the athletes who 
 had thus far had the greatest number of successes. 
 
 "Some of you," he said with an arrogant look, 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 8 1 
 
 "very nearly equalled me in the simple sports we 
 have just been trying; dare you pit yourselves 
 against me in something more serious? You see 
 this white birch with the straight and vigorous 
 shaft; let a rope be attached near the top, so that 
 we may use it to pull the tree over toward the 
 ground; the one who bends it farthest and holds it 
 there longest, is the strongest man among us." 
 
 The proposition of the boastful and sinewy 
 Herfax was received with acclaim, and promptly 
 put into execution. A number of the athletes took 
 their turn at the rope, and inclined the birch to a 
 greater or less degree, the top springing back when 
 each reached the end of his strength. Thorwald 
 was among those who had made the best record, 
 Avhen Herfax took hold of the rope, made the tree 
 bend lower than anyone else had done, and held it 
 longest, looking triumphantly about him all the 
 time. Herfax already believed himself the victor, 
 when Thorwald called Rodwig and persuaded him 
 to try his strength, which he knew to be superior to 
 his own. The Sequanian was glad to oblige his 
 friend, and Thorwald gave a cry of joy when he 
 saw the tree bend slowly until it reached by far the 
 lowest point to which it had been brought, and re- 
 main there twice as long as it had .hitherto been 
 held. 
 
 Finding himself acclaimed by all the contestants 
 except Herfax, who was filled with displeasure and 
 wounded vanity, Rodwig said with a smile: "My 
 success was an easy one, good friends, for the tree 
 had been shaken by you all, and I had only to finish 
 your work." His words were received with ap- 
 preciation, and gained him new congratulations. 
 
82 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 He was trying to slip away to the group of youths 
 with whom he had first been talking, when the gen- 
 eral attention was drawn to the group where the 
 gambling was going on, from which the noise of a 
 quarrel was now arising. 
 
 The slaves charged with serving beer and hy- 
 dromel, had been kept busy, especially among these 
 gamesters, some of whom were just beginning to 
 show signs of inebriety, while others had already 
 reached the drunken state. The play had become 
 intense; ornaments, shields, helmets and other 
 armor and even horses had changed owners. One 
 of the losers had been despoiled of everything he 
 possessed, even his dwelling ; and in the hope of re- 
 gaining from his adversary the things he had lost, 
 he proposed a fresh game, in which he should 
 wager his own freedom, in the form of three years 
 of personal servitude. Such stakes were too fre- 
 quent among the Gauls for this one to be refused; 
 but it proved fatal to the man who had thus tried 
 to avenge himself, and who became an object of 
 commiseration to his former companions, of whom 
 he was now no longer an equal. The master he 
 had just acquired, made him cruelly conscious of 
 his position, by ordering him to go and get together 
 his possessions, and await further commands. 
 
 This swift and harsh use of the rights of the 
 victor, aroused the indignation of some of the vic- 
 tim's friends, and one of them made it evident in 
 violent language, which was replied to in kind by 
 the nearest friends of the other man. 
 
 The quarrel increased rapidly in bitterness, and 
 already some one had gone in search of weapons, 
 which would have turned the pleasure ground into 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 83 
 
 a field of combat, when the aged Druid Horik was 
 seen approaching, whose imposing aspect and com- 
 manding gesture alone brought these angry fellows 
 up sharply. "Is the source of the German blood so 
 completely quenched," he demanded severely, "that 
 you are making ready here to spill Gallic blood ? in- 
 stead of warring against the enemy, would you 
 fight among yourselves? shame and anathema up- 
 on you, whose vile passions have so destroyed your 
 good sense, that they are driving you to fratricide! 
 Remember the authority of my sacred office, and 
 fear still more the occult power given me by the 
 sacred mysteries of the religion of our gods ! I de- 
 clare an end to this day's sport, which is becoming 
 culpable. Go home, every one of you!" 
 
 Awed and submissive, the young warriors, who 
 were as superstitious as they were bellicose, made 
 haste to obey the Druid's command. Thorwald, 
 pained to see the sports he had arranged ended be- 
 fore nightfall, returned home with Rodwig, who 
 like himself had had no part in the gaming or the 
 quarrel. 
 
 Toward the middle of the next day, a hundred 
 guests were assembled at tables set in the open in 
 front of the homestead of the old chief Marcol. 
 The company was made up of the Druid Horik, the 
 elder and more notable members of the Altitona 
 clan, its most renowned warriors, and a dozen or so 
 of the younger men, whose personal merits made 
 them eligible for Diela's choice of a husband. 
 
 After a few friendly words to his guests, Marcol 
 invited them to sit down, and the banquet began. 
 The Chief occupied an elevated seat in the center. 
 At his right was his daughter, next the Druid, and 
 
84 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 then the most aged of the remaining guests ; at his 
 left sat his wife, followed by a bard whose long 
 white hair and beard betokened great age, and after 
 him came Thorwald and his beloved Rodwig, who 
 was firmly repressing in the depths of his heart, the 
 poignant suffering of his hopeless love. The re- 
 maining banqueters were grouped according to 
 their liking, at tables facing that of the Chief and 
 his more intimate friends. 
 
 Toward the end of the meal, Horik began to 
 speak in praise of the gods, and to narrate the de- 
 tails of a great sacrifice which had recently been of- 
 fered them on the high plateau of the Fiery Field, 
 not far from the peak of Donon. Many unfavor- 
 able auspices had been observed among the Medio- 
 matrici living to the west of the Vosges, and had 
 been confirmed by observations made by the Druids 
 upon the entrails of human vicitims immolated in 
 three different vicinities. In order to exorcise the 
 unknown evils' to which they believed themselves 
 exposed, the people resolved to invoke the favor of 
 the gods by a great sacrifice, and to this end they 
 raised a great pile, surmounted by a wooden cage 
 vaguely resembling a man's form, holding four 
 German slaves in its lower tier, and in the upper 
 three Gauls chosen by lot from the servant class. 
 The wood for the sacrifice being very dry, gave out 
 little smoke but an ardent flame. "And so," said 
 the old Druid, "from the moment it was set afire, 
 one could see long tongues of flame reaching up to 
 the Germans, who, mad with pain and rage, uttered 
 frightful cries, which were soon repeated by the 
 Gallic victims above. It was a pious and imposing 
 scene," the old priest went on, — "these men, chosen 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 85 
 
 to make expiation, raising their voices to Heaven 
 in their torture and agony; their suffering and 
 death should bring down upon the Mediomatrici the 
 indulgence of the god of war." 
 
 After the speech of the Druid, the Bard took his 
 turn. Rising to his full height, he brushed back 
 from his forehead his long white hair, and with 
 dignity as well as graceful facility, improvised his 
 verses, beginning with an invocation to Belinus, the 
 god of art. He sang the warlike glories of the clan 
 of Alitona, and those of its chief, Marcol, and 
 his aged comrades. After recounting their exploits, 
 he fell into gentler measures, and extolled the 
 virtues and charms of Diela — her intelligence, 
 sweetness and kindness; the elegance of her tall, 
 slim figure; the grace of her carriage and move- 
 ments ; the freshness of her color, her delicate 
 features and white teeth; the azure of her eyes, the 
 abundance and softness of her long blonde hair, the 
 harmonies in her voice, which he compared to that 
 of the lark, the airy songster most beloved of 
 the Gauls. Noisy and enthusiastic acclamations 
 crowned the poetic utterances of the Bard, which 
 re-echoed most in the heart of Rodwig, deepening 
 the torture he endured. 
 
 Then the proud Herfax was seen rising from his 
 seat, stroking with one hand his heavy auburn 
 moustache, and looking confidently about him, his 
 glance softening, however, when at last it fell upon 
 Diela; and in a penetrating voice, he made this 
 speech: "I should be happy did I possess even a 
 small part of the skill with which the honored and 
 beloved bard of our clan has just paid homage to 
 the merits of the young woman whom we all ad- 
 
86 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 mire, and whose choice many of us covet ; but I am 
 only a warrior and my words are not worth so 
 much as my deeds. I can only make known the 
 sentiments she inspires in me, and say to her, that 
 among those who dare to hope for her companion- 
 ship, not one surpasses me in wealth, in stature, in 
 activity, in strength and in bravery, and that in ac- 
 cepting the offer I make her, she will crown all 
 these advantages that I possess." 
 
 After this speech, which aroused as many mur- 
 murs as it did marks of approval, one of the 
 euhages, a man of sympathetic and noble aspect, 
 speaking in soft and ingratiating tones, made him- 
 self heard as follows : "Whatever advantages a 
 warrior may offer a wife, they are unfortunately 
 offset by his repeated absences, the dangers to which 
 he is exposed, his habit of frequenting places where 
 gaming is too deep and there is too much drinking 
 and quarreling ; and too often by the rudeness of his 
 manners and his nature. How greatly preferable 
 is the lot of the companion of a member of the 
 priesthood, even though he be, like myself, only one 
 of the inferior order of the hierarchy of priests of 
 our gods. In the case of such a union, the woman 
 does not have to dread the payment of taxes, or to 
 undergo the anxiety and grief of seeing her hus- 
 band exposed to the dangers of war and of the ex- 
 cesses to which he might give himself in times of 
 peace. He to whom she has confided the care of 
 her life, is not forced to part from her, is exposed 
 to no perils, enjoys general consideration, and oc- 
 cupies a prominent place as soon as he is elevated 
 to the dignity of a Druid. Such is the destiny 
 which might assure a happy life to the beautiful 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 87 
 
 Diela, should she deign to listen favorably to my 
 avowals." 
 
 There was but one other pretendent to Diela's 
 hand who desired to express his thoughts or had the 
 courage to try. He was a merchant, active and of 
 much intelligence, already very wealthy in spite of 
 his youth, and growing more so with every journey 
 he made into the countries, often far distant, with 
 which he had succeeding in establishing commercial 
 relations. He vaunted the ever increasing com- 
 forts to be procured through his career, the exten- 
 sive knowledge acquired in following it, and the po- 
 sition of influence it would give to the mistress of 
 his house; and he ended by a warm and eloquent 
 prayer addressed to Diela, to whose happiness he 
 declared that he would devote his life. 
 
 The guests now took up the thread of their con- 
 versation, and were not again interrupted, until the 
 moment came when the Druid announced, that ac- 
 cording to the custom followed by a number of the 
 Gallic nations, Diela, a cup in her hand, would pass 
 in front of the guests, and stopping before the one 
 she was to choose for her husband, offer the cup to 
 him. Horik suggested that all keep silence while 
 the girl was carrying this out, so that no word or 
 movement should disturb her. 
 
 Anxiety might now be seen on the faces of those 
 whose fate depended upon the issue of this interest- 
 ing ceremony, while a lively curiosity showed itself 
 in the expression of all the rest, and it was only by 
 a supreme effort that Rodwig succeeded in appear- 
 ing calm. 
 
 The whole assembly was moved to rise, and they 
 stood in respectful attitude while Diela, serious and 
 
88 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 thoughtful, grasped the cup, into which her father 
 had poured some hydromel, and then moved grace- 
 fully toward the right, passing before the Druid and 
 the aged men next to him. She continued her way 
 along the ranks of all these friends or dependents 
 of the old Chief, giving to each a kind or friendly 
 glance; but she did not stop before any one of 
 them. The young men who had raised their de- 
 sires and pretensions to her, were left downcast as 
 they saw that their hopes had been in vain, and 
 all who were watching the silent scene expected to 
 see it end without result; for Diela's course had al- 
 ready taken her to the extreme left of the table 
 where her family had been seated. It was there 
 that Rodwig now stood, by the side of Thorwald, 
 and there Diela hesitated an instant, then taking a 
 step toward her brother's friend, blushing and 
 smiling she held out the cup to him. 
 
 Surprised, pale with emotion, and scarcely con- 
 scious of his happiness, which was almost greater 
 than he could bear, Rodwig seized the cup in one 
 hand, while he took in the other the hand of Diela, 
 pressing it tenderly as he asked : "Then you divined 
 my secret?" 
 
 "Easily," she replied, "when I myself was keep- 
 ing the same one." Thorwald turned toward his 
 parents, saying to his friend: "Brother, these are 
 your father and mother." And Marcol, pressing 
 Rodwig's hand, said affectionately : "My daughter 
 could have made no better choice than that of the 
 man who saved her brother." "As for me," added 
 Diela's mother, putting her arms about her child, "I 
 am now happy in having two sons equally worthy 
 of my affection." 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 89 
 
 SEVENTH VIEW. 
 
 The Gauls attacked by the Romans. To the aid of the 
 Massilians. Allobroges, Arverni and Bituit. First Roman 
 province and colony of Narbo. Cimbri and Teutones. 
 Helvetii. Ariovistus. Vercingetorix. All Gaul subjugated 
 and partitioned into four provinces. Resignation and gen- 
 eral submission of the Gauls; final opposition. Charac- 
 teristic Episode: Sigor and Veda. 
 
 Gaul had long been the terror of the Romans. 
 Now they turned the tables upon her. They first 
 invaded the country in 154 B. C, to aid the Mas- 
 silians in their struggle with the Ligurians; these 
 they reduced to submission to the Roman allies. 
 
 In 124 B. C, the Massilians, being attacked by 
 the Salyes, again called the Romans to their assist- 
 ance. After a second victorious campaign, a Roman 
 colony was established in Gaul, the proconsul Sex- 
 tius laying the foundations of the City of Aix. 
 
 Two years later, taking advantage of the war the 
 Aedui were waging against the Allobroges, the 
 Romans made an alliance with the former nation, 
 and fell upon the latter, which had refused to give 
 up to them the chief of the Salyes, to whom they 
 had given sanctuary after his downfall. In spite of 
 their alliance with the Arverni, the Allobroges were 
 defeated, and so, in the following year were the 
 Arverni, whose king, Bituit, captured by treason, 
 
90 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 was taken to Rome and led a captive in the 
 triumphal procession of his conqueror, Domitius. 
 The country of the vanquished Gauls was con- 
 verted into a Roman province, and a short time 
 afterward the submission of other Gallic tribes 
 made it possible for the Romans to establish an im- 
 portant colony at Narbonne. These Roman posses- 
 sions just escaped destruction under the onslaught 
 of an invading army of Cimbri and Teutones, 
 whose armies, however, were put to rout by Marius 
 at Vercellae, a hundred and one years before the 
 Christian era. 
 
 Forty years later, Caesar was in command of all 
 the Gallic territory that had submitted to the 
 Romans. The Sequani being at war with the 
 Aedui, called to their aid Ariovistus, king of the 
 Suevi, who soon made his power felt by both the 
 contending nations. These now united their forces 
 in an effort to repulse him, and to the same end 
 they made an alliance with the Rauraci, and let a 
 whole tribe of the Helvetii enter their territory. 
 Caesar began by exterminating this tribe. Then he 
 advanced toward the Rhine, and in a great victory 
 drove Ariovistus and the remainder of his Suevi 
 across the river. The exact spot where this battle 
 was fought is uncertain; but judging from what is 
 known of the Roman pursuit of the fleeing Ger- 
 mans to the river's bank, its scene could not have 
 been elsewhere than in the southern part of Alsace, 
 in the country of the Rauraci and the Sequani. 
 
 His power strengthened by his last two victories, 
 Caesar had only to push forward his conquest of 
 the Gallic tribes, always at war among themselves, 
 and so never all resisting him at the same time. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 9 1 
 
 And yet, in spite of these conditions so favorable to 
 him, it was only after seven campaigns that he suc- 
 ceeded in subduing the last of them. It was in the 
 third campaign that he had to drive back beyond 
 the confluence of the Moselle and the Rhine, a 
 formidable invasion of Germans. In the sixth, he 
 was obliged to sustain a struggle against the most 
 determined opposition the Gauls ever made in de- 
 fense of their national independence, when from all 
 sides their warriors had assembled in the country 
 of the Arverni, under the command of a young 
 chieftain named Vercingetorix. 
 
 After a number of encounters, in which the Gauls 
 often had the advantage, they were obliged to take 
 refuge in Alesia, a stronghold situated on a height, 
 which Vercingetorix heroically defended with the 
 eighty thousand men still left to him. After he 
 was surrounded by the enemy, he sent away his 
 horsemen, who had become useless, charging them 
 to make a supreme appeal to the Gallic nations. 
 According to the Roman historians, who must cer- 
 tainly have exaggerated the number in order to en- 
 hance Caesar's glory, two hundred and fifty thou- 
 sand Gauls came to the aid of Vercingetorix. But 
 the Roman general had so fortified his camp, that 
 the Gauls could not gain possession of it, and at the 
 close of a terrific battle, they were put to flight. 
 After this battle, Vercingetorix, who had taken 
 part in it with all his forces, now reduced to help- 
 lessness, returned to Alesia, summoned his council, 
 and spoke these noble words before them: "We 
 have fought for the freedom of the Gauls and we 
 are vanquished. We must yield to our fate, and 
 that it may be less hard for the rest of you, let me 
 
92 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 be delivered up, dead or alive, to Caesar; which 
 shall it be?" 
 
 Caesar was informed that Vercingetorix was 
 about to surrender himself, but he demanded in ad- 
 dition the laying down of all arms, and the sur- 
 render of the other chiefs, and appointed as the 
 place for this, an eminence in front of his quarters. 
 He himself had scarcely arrived there, where he 
 was to decide the fate of the vanquished people, 
 when Vercingetorix was seen approaching clad in 
 splendid armor and mounted on a mettlesome 
 horse, which he brought to a stand before ,the 
 Roman officers. Then the haughty Gaul dis- 
 mounted, and without speaking a word, threw on 
 the ground his helmet, his shield and his sword. 
 Caesar covered him with reproaches and abuse, 
 and ordered chains for the intrepid warrior, whose 
 air of nobility and calmness was not disturbed by 
 this odious treatment. The splendid victim of pa- 
 triotism was led to Rome and thrown into a 
 dungeon, from which he did not come out until 
 the end of six years, when he took his part in the 
 triumph of Caesar, and was then cruelly put to 
 death by the headsman's axe, in 46 B. C. Four 
 years before this odious execution of the Gallic 
 hero, Caesar had reduced the whole of Gaul to a 
 Roman province. 
 
 Enticed by the superior civilization of the Ro- 
 mans, the glory of Caesar, and the honors he heap- 
 ed upon their most influential men, the care he took 
 to respect the municipal governments, and especial- 
 ly by the creation of a legion composed wholly of 
 Gauls (called Alauda, from the sky-lark, because of 
 the national love for the bird), the Gallic people 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 93 
 
 ceased to think of their independence, which had 
 been so disturbed by civil strife, and no longer of- 
 fered any resistance to the Roman rule. 
 
 They remained almost indifferent to the changes 
 in administration which Agustus forced upon them 
 early in his reign, during the last years before the 
 modern era. Entirely disregarding their original 
 national divisions, which Caesar had carefully re- 
 spected, his successor merged them indiscriminate- 
 ly into four provinces — Aquitania, between the 
 Pyrenees and the Loire; Gallia Narbonensis, be- 
 tween the Pyrenees, the Mediterranean, the Alps, 
 the Rhone and the Cevennes; Gallia proper, or 
 Celtic Gaul, between the Loire, the Seine and the 
 Saone; and Gallia Belgica, between the English 
 Channel, the Seine, the Saone and the Rhine. 
 
 The Gauls showed themselves no more sensitive 
 to the changes undergone by their religious beliefs 
 and observances. Their gods were either repudiated 
 or transformed into Roman divinities, and the 
 Druids, driven further and further back toward 
 Armorica, were replaced by priests of the Latin cult. 
 
 The stamping out of the spirit of national inde- 
 pendence was not so complete but that there were 
 left in many generous hearts lively sentiments of 
 opposition and of hatred toward the alien enemy, 
 which were oftenest to be found in out-of-the-way 
 places, least exposed to the allurements of the Ro- 
 man civilization. Such a spirit had been preserved 
 unsullied among a little Gallic clan dwelling in the 
 Valley of La Roche, almost entirely cut off from 
 contact with the neighboring regions, at the foot of 
 the Vosges Mountains that bear up the plateau of 
 the Champ-du-feu and the lofty crest of the Donon. 
 
94 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 The chief of this clan was the brave Sigor, whose 
 grandfather had met his death by the side of Bituit, 
 on the battlefield of the Arverni and the Allobroges, 
 and whose brother had fallen at his side under the 
 walls of Alesia. With the old warrior lived his 
 daughter Veda, a young Druidess, who, after visit- 
 ing the various retreats of the priests and priestesses 
 of the isle of Sein and the forests of Amorica, had 
 returned to consecrate her life and affection to her 
 father. Her personal charms and her admirable 
 qualities of heart and mind, made her worthy of 
 the great love her father had for her, and together 
 they strove to make of the son and brother Naxur, 
 a man deserving of their attachment and that of 
 Sigor's followers. 
 
 Father and daughter were often pained to see 
 that many qualities they desired for Naxur, failed 
 to develop .in him. He was strong and handsome, 
 skillful in all bodily exercises, pleasant and kindly, 
 and had a bright mind; but he was frivolous, care- 
 less, forgetful even in important matters, eager for 
 novelty, and little responsive to lofty ideas and en- 
 thusiasms. 
 
 These defects became more and more evident, 
 and when he was approaching his twentieth year, 
 he confessed to his sister his ardent desire to leave 
 the clan of the Rock and go to some one of the 
 Gallic cities that the Romans were beautifying by 
 their works of engineering and art and the effects of 
 their civilization in general. His ambition was to 
 learn their language, to acquire the knowledge they 
 had, and to become acquainted with their customs 
 and habits and the mode of their daily life. "I 
 want," he said, "to leave behind my half savage 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 95 
 
 ignorance, and open my eyes to the light which 
 these strangers possess, and with which they dazzle 
 us; they will have shed it all over Gaul before it 
 penetrates into our native valley, unless I go to 
 them and bring some of it back with me." 
 
 Veda, deep-rooted like her father in all that con- 
 stituted the Gallic nationality, and imbued with his 
 hatred of the conquerors of their country, fought 
 against these plans of her brother, and was filled 
 with despair when she saw that he was bent upon 
 carrying them out. For she knew how indignant 
 Sigor would be when he learned of them, and that 
 dissensions and probably a break between father and 
 son would follow. 
 
 As impatient to have new desires fulfilled as he 
 was ready to entertain them and obstinate about 
 giving them up, Naxur let little time pass before 
 making his present plans known to the old chieftain, 
 who tried, but in vain, to oppose them with his 
 parental authority. The ungrateful son was master 
 of his affairs, and breaking the ties which attached 
 him to his family, his clan, and his native village, 
 he set out for Argentoratum, promising, however, 
 that he would return after a sojourn of a year at 
 the most. 
 
 In these final days before the opening of the mod- 
 ern era, Argentoratum (Strasbourg) had already 
 become an important city, on account of the number 
 of its inhabitants and its situation on the large River 
 111, which in its course of a hundred and fifty kilo- 
 meters, gathers up from the Alsatian plain the wa- 
 ters of many rivers descending from the Vosges, 
 and goes on to empty them into the Rhine, only a 
 little way from the city. This combination of ad- 
 
96 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 vantages had led the Romans to choose the place 
 for the establishment of one of their strongest mili- 
 tary posts and the active development of their po- 
 litical, administrative, and commercial resources. 
 Latin was spoken there as freely as Gallic, and the 
 various institutions already founded in it, gave to 
 Argentoratum all the characteristics of the large 
 Gallo-Roman cities of the Augustan age. 
 
 Naxur was enchanted by the sight of novelties he 
 had come to inquire into during the time he had 
 given himself for remaining in the city. In spite of 
 his father's disapproval of his project, he had fur- 
 nished Naxur with some means for carrying it out, 
 and also with an appeal for his son's aid and pro- 
 tection, which he had addressed to several of his old 
 friends residing in Argentoratum. 
 
 With the eagerness he put into the pursuit of 
 everything new to him, Naxur devoted himself to 
 the study of the language, customs and habits of 
 the Romans, and of the commercial affairs devel- 
 oped by their presence, even connecting himself 
 with some of these so successfully as to assure an 
 easy competence. He was very soon brought into 
 notice by his abilities, his education, — so superior to 
 that of most men of his race, — his skill in the use of 
 his physical strength, and his pleasing disposition. 
 He was quick to make acquaintances of his own age, 
 among both Gauls and Romans, and entered gaily 
 into all their pleasures. As he had intended, he 
 was no longer the demi-savage of the Valley of the 
 Rock, but had become an attractive and companion- 
 able fellow, welcome in the most distinguished fam- 
 ilies of Argentoratum. 
 
 But his successful career did not make him forget 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 97 
 
 his affection for his father and sister. He informed 
 them of his affairs, from time to time, in missives 
 which he thought must be agreeable to them, but 
 which, on the contrary, increased their regrets and 
 sorrow on his account; for each succeeding one 
 made them see more clearly the growing distance 
 that separated him from them. As they had ex- 
 pected, the time set for his return had passed with- 
 out it, and this but added to their grief, which each 
 succeeding )^ear deepened. 
 
 Among the Romans occupying official posts at 
 Argentoratum, was the uncle of a young centurian 
 of the eighth legion, with whom Naxur had en- 
 tered into intimate friendship. Kindly received by 
 this relative of his friend Marcus, Naxur the more 
 assiduously availed himself of his hospitality, be- 
 cause of the presence in the house of a niece, Vir- 
 ginia, the young centurian's sister, who was pos- 
 sessed of all the attractions Italy lavishes upon the 
 daughters of her fortunate climate. 
 
 Promptly intoxicated by the charms of this young 
 and beautiful stranger, Naxur fell violently in love 
 with her, and thought himself the happiest of mor- 
 tals, when he found that his passion was not dis- 
 couraged by the object of it. 
 
 Marcus saw no obstacles, and informed his uncle, 
 who also had no opposition to offer; however, he 
 made it a condition of his consent to his niece's mar- 
 riage with a Gaul, that the latter should give un- 
 questionable proof of his loyalty to the Roman rule. 
 
 After much reflection and deliberation, it was 
 agreed, that both to furnish the guarantee exacted 
 of Naxur, and to assure his future and Virginia's, 
 the best thing would be for him to join the Gallic 
 
98 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 legion, in which, thanks to his aptitude and his 
 superiority to the majority of his compatriots, as 
 well as to the influence of the Roman functionary, 
 he would be eventually promoted to the rank of cen- 
 turian. 
 
 This project, promptly put under way by those 
 most interested, was carried out with no delay or 
 difficulty, and it only remained to make the whole 
 thing acceptable to Naxur's father, for his consent 
 was considered by Virginia to be essential to her 
 own. 
 
 When informed of these facts by a message from 
 his son during the fifth year of his absence, Sigor 
 made no reply. However, following the prompt- 
 ings of his inconsequential mind, Naxur did not 
 doubt that just as his father had yielded to per- 
 suasion before, he would now do so again, in the 
 matter of the marriage with Virginia, especially if 
 he were given an opportunity to judge, of her char- 
 acter. From the moment he got this idea into his 
 head, Naxur had no thought for anything else but 
 making the journey to the Valley of the Rock, in 
 company with Virginia and Marcus, so that he 
 might present them to Sigor and Veda, whose af- 
 fection he thought they would surely win. Used to 
 seeing the friendliness which was the rule between 
 the Gauls and Romans about him, he forgot his fa- 
 ther's patriotic sentiments and his hatred of his 
 country's conquerors, not even thinking to make 
 these things known to Virginia and her relatives, 
 whom he assured that the old man's silence could 
 have no significance antagonistic to their views. He 
 pictured in rosy colors the little journey to the Val- 
 ley, described enthusiastically the beauty of the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 99 
 
 mountains and his eagerness to see them again, es- 
 pecially in the company of his friends, and told 
 them of his sister's unchanging affection for. him, 
 and of his father's generous and hospitable ways. 
 He was eloquent and he was beloved. It ended in 
 his obtaining the promise of Marcus and Virginia 
 to go with him to the Valley of the Rock. 
 
 And meanwhile, in this secluded spot, sorrow and 
 indignation had been filling Sigor's heart, from the 
 moment he received the last and fatal message from 
 his son; while Veda, though she shared her father's 
 feelings, made efforts to console him ; but they were 
 in vain. 
 
 One day, at the end of a beautiful morning, fa- 
 ther and daughter were seated in elevated seats at 
 the head of a table where they were finishing their 
 meal and presiding over that of a score of retainers 
 and servants, their usual table companions, when 
 one of their shepherds came running in, and made 
 haste to inform them that two Roman knights and 
 a lady in a litter borne by mules, were just arriving 
 outside the palisade that surrounded the village. 
 
 "Let them be admitted," said Sigor, whose out- 
 ward calm was not disturbed by a presentiment of 
 trouble which he nevertheless felt: "Let them be 
 admitted, and taken to the building reserved for 
 travellers; my daughter will be there to receive 
 them. Veda, go to this lady and her companions, 
 and see that they are treated with the respect due to 
 guests, whoever they may be." 
 
 After an absence long enough to greatly increase 
 her father's anxiety, Veda, agitated and fearful, re- 
 joined him in the dining hall where he had remained 
 alone, and informed him that she had just seen 
 
100 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Naxur, his friend Marcus, and Virginia, the Roman 
 girl Naxur wished to marry. "Your son," she 
 said, "has come back to me with expressions of 
 warm and tender affection, and he is impatient to 
 show the same feeling to you. The strangers with 
 him appear to be people of distinction, and worthy 
 of all respect and interest. O my father, I tremble 
 to see you so moved! Remember that Naxur is 
 my brother and that he is your son; remember that 
 bound as I am by my vows, I can give you no de- 
 scendants, and that without Naxur the clan of the 
 Rock will see in you the end of our glorious line of 
 chieftains. O my father, whom I love so tenderly 
 and venerate yet more, be indulgent, do not be 
 severe!" 
 
 Sigor remained a long time buried in deep reflec- 
 tion, showing in spite of himself signs of the violent 
 strife going on within his soul, and the contra- 
 dictory feelings which were agitating him. At 
 length, his face took on an expression of firm reso- 
 lution, and he told his daughter to go for Marcus 
 and Virginia and take them to the reception hall, 
 where he would wait for them. 
 
 He had been there but a few moments when Veda 
 entered, holding Virginia by the hand, and followed 
 by Marcus, the sight of whose Roman dress sent a 
 tremor through the old chieftain, which did not, 
 however, hinder him from a courteous exchange 
 with the strangers of the civilities prescribed by 
 custom. 
 
 After they were all seated, the brother and sister 
 together, and the daughter beside her father, Sigor 
 opened the interview by saying, "Although I have 
 learned from my son, what the relations are that at- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IOI 
 
 tach him to you, young strangers, I wish a few- 
 words of explanation as to the reasons for your 
 coming to my home." 
 
 "I will tell you, very simply and quite sincerely," 
 Marcus replied : "Your son had been my friend for 
 more than three years, when my uncle, accompanied 
 by my sister, came to Argentoratum, to carry out 
 some important administrative measures, with which 
 he has now been concerned for more than a year. I 
 presented Naxur, and he was well liked by them 
 both. He fell in love with my sister, who after a 
 little time accepted his suit, very greatly to my satis- 
 faction. Our relative, to whose guidance Virginia 
 submits with a very warm affection, put no ob- 
 stacles in the way of Naxur's aspirations; but he 
 consented to fulfill his wishes only upon proof of his 
 loyalty to the present government. This led Naxur 
 to become a centurian in the Gallic Legion, and we 
 supposed that this advantageous position would be 
 highly appreciated by his family, and would make it 
 agreeable to them to have him united to ours. So it 
 was not without surprise, that we learned of your 
 failure to make any response in the matter. How- 
 ever, Naxur attributed your silence to nothing but 
 the habits of your isolated life, and had little trouble 
 in persuading my sister and me to come with him in 
 order to pay our respects to you, in your twofold 
 dignity of father and Chief of the clan of the Rock. 
 Need I add that we are astonished at what has hap- 
 pened since our arrival, and begin to fear that our 
 visit is not being taken upon its true merits ?" 
 
 "Do not believe," Sigor hastened to say, his voice 
 betraying his emotion, "that I am capable of judg- 
 ing so unjustly what you have done loyally and with 
 
102 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 the best intentions. On the contrary, I appreciate, 
 and my daughter appreciates still more, the feelings 
 that prompted you to come here. So it is with re- 
 gret that I shall perhaps wound them in making 
 known to you my own, and the mistake that Naxur 
 committed in not making you acquainted with 
 them." 
 
 "It is a hundred and fifty years since your people 
 began to attack mine, and from that time to this my 
 family has played its part in the struggles between 
 them. In spite of all their efforts, which were un- 
 availing because of the divisions among themselves, 
 the Gauls have been forced to submit to the power 
 of Rome. But whatever may be in the present, and 
 whatever the future has in store, forgetfulness of 
 the past ought never to be found in the hearts of 
 those who fought against your legions, and saw 
 them shed the blood of fathers, brothers, and 
 friends, load with chains and sell as slaves more 
 than a hundred thousand of their vanquished coun- 
 trymen, and crush under foot the independence of 
 their native land. I, an old soldier of Vercingetorix, 
 feel yet the horror of the cruelties heaped upon that 
 hero, and to the love I bear my country, I join a 
 hatred inspired in me by the nation that has made 
 itself her mistress, whatever be its grandeur, its 
 power, and its social superiority. These passions 
 do not, however, blind me to the injustice there 
 would be in making them personal, and I as truly 
 esteem the Roman who serves his country well, as 
 I scorn the Gaul who repudiates his. So it cannot 
 be an offence to you, brave soldier, faithful to your 
 duty, nor to your young sister, whom one need only 
 see to esteem and like, when I make it known to you 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO3 
 
 that neither Sigor nor his daughter would volun- 
 tarily consent to an alliance with a Roman house. 
 As to Naxur, he has long forgotten or disdained 
 my authority; he is free to act as he will." 
 
 "Noble Chieftain," replied Marcus, "without see- 
 ing the justice of your rancor and your futile re- 
 sistance to what cannot be changed, I bow respect- 
 fully before the feeling that moves you. So far as 
 concerns Naxur, whom I must reproach with hav- 
 ing dealt very lightly with my family, I leave my 
 sister to decide what the result shall be." 
 
 Then Virginia, although still having some diffi- 
 culty in speaking the Gallic, announced her firm 
 decision never to marry into a family whose affec- 
 tion she did not have, and whose impressions of her 
 were such as to be detrimental to her dignity and 
 self-respect. 
 
 Veda going over to her, took Virginia's hand im- 
 pulsively and pressed it to her heart, saying, "Put 
 that last thought far from you, I entreat you! In 
 spite of his faults, I love my brother as I have al- 
 ways loved him, and you who have accepted and 
 returned his love will leave with me an ineffaceable 
 memory, full of gratitude and regret." 
 
 Marcus now expressed his desire to terminate 
 the painful interview, and to set out immediately, 
 in order to reach before the end of the day, the 
 village in the plain where they had passed the pre- 
 ceding night; and he persisted in his determination, 
 although Sigor urged him to prolong their stay till 
 the next day, so that his sister might take a much 
 needed rest. 
 
 Yielding to the will of the young Romans, 
 the Gallic Chieftain received their good-byes, and 
 
104 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. . 
 
 charged Veda to see that all arrangements be 
 made for their departure, and that an escort of 
 horsemen be sent to accompany them to the out- 
 skirts of the Valley of the Rock. 
 
 When she had seen her father's orders carried 
 out, Veda, all in tears, returned to tell him of 
 Naxur's grief at the departure of his friends and 
 at the coldness of their farewell, and his impatience 
 to be admitted in his turn into the presence of 
 Sigor. . 
 
 A few minutes later the old Chief saw his son 
 enter with Veda, and at an imperious gesture on 
 his part, halt a few steps away. Naxur no longer 
 wore the long hair and moustache of the Gaelic 
 warriors, and he was dressed in the military uni- 
 form of his rank in the Gallic Legion; his figure 
 and carriage were altogether martial, and he 
 looked remarkably handsome. He appeared to be 
 violently agitated, and could scarcely control him- 
 self under his father's gaze, but broke into the com- 
 plaints and reproaches with which his mind was 
 filled. 
 
 "Is this the way, after years of absence, I must 
 be received by my father, in the house where my 
 mother gave me birth? This dwelling has indeed 
 become inhospitable when it drives away people 
 dear to me, whom I have brought here to present 
 to the chief of the clan of the Rock, that they might 
 pay their respects to him! What am I to think of 
 such a welcome, and how explain it?" 
 
 "You should consider," said Sigor, in firm and 
 severe tones, "that you are standing before a chief 
 whose authority you have challenged, and a father 
 whom you have wounded in every feeling. You. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO5 
 
 who, in spite of my opposition, left me, upon the 
 pretext of studying for a year the so-called progress 
 of the Gauls, in order that upon your return you 
 might teach your brothers of the Clan of the Rock 
 to enjoy it also, — what have you done since then? 
 You have prolonged your stay in a city which has 
 become more Roman than Gallic, and you have 
 brought back from it none of that light which was 
 to illumine a prosperous future for your native val- 
 ley. 
 
 "Forgetful of your duty to me and to those whose 
 chief you should become after me, you have 
 entered into friendly relations with the oppressors 
 of your country, and you have acquired not only 
 their language, but also the ways of their life ! 
 
 "You have accepted the transformation of your 
 gods into new and strange divinities ; you have for- 
 gotten the glory and freedom of your country, to 
 wear the yoke of the conquerors who crush her in- 
 solently under foot! You have clasped in yours 
 Roman hands still warm with the blood of your 
 compatriots whose fathers perished with mine on 
 the battle fields of the Arverni, under the swords of 
 the fathers of your new friends! You have for- 
 gotten the thousands of Gauls dragged to Rome as 
 slaves, where they were sold and where they are 
 still sold like worthless cattle! 
 
 "Without regard for the length and purity of my 
 line, you would have given me Roman children for 
 my descendants, and in order to attain this odious 
 result, you have descended to the rank of a Roman 
 mercenary !" 
 
 Crushed as Naxur was under the weight of these 
 reproaches, he nevertheless cried out : "I am a cen- 
 
106 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 turian in a legion of Gauls — Gauls alone!" "Yes," 
 Sigor replied bitterly, "a Gallic legion under hire, 
 and at the orders of the Romans ! You are noth- 
 ing but a traitor, I tell you — traitor to your gods, 
 traitor to your country, traitor to your fathers and 
 your brothers ! You have repudiated them all, and 
 through my lips they repudiate you. And I — I 
 repudiate you as my son! Go, leave this home that 
 you defile by your presence and whose first dis- 
 honor is in your shame! Leave it forever! I ban- 
 ish you, I 
 
 "Father, O father, do not curse him," cried Veda, 
 overcome with anguish. 
 
 "Be it so," said Sigor; "out of love for you and 
 in remembrance of your mother, I will not curse 
 him, but I deliver him up to the rage of Taranis, 
 whose bolts may perhaps hinder him from prolong- 
 ing too far a life of shame and treason." 
 
 Almost beside himself with grief, Naxur rushed 
 out of the room in which his father had judged and 
 condemned him. Veda followed, and after bidding 
 her a hopeless good-bye, he sprang upon his horse, 
 and at a mad gallop fled from his home, which he 
 was never again to see. 
 
 From that fatal day, a mournful sadness reigned 
 in Sigor's dwelling. The weight of the years, which 
 hitherto had not told upon his vigorous old age, 
 now gradually enfeebled him, and in the end over- 
 came him. In a few years' time he died in his 
 daughter's arms, still cherishing the hope that the 
 Gallic race would some day regain its independence. 
 
 When the Clan of the Rock had chosen a new 
 chieftain, Veda retired to a quiet corner of her 
 father's domain. Always keeping herself informed 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IO7 
 
 of her brother's fortunes, she learned that very soon 
 after their father's death he had perished gloriously, 
 after showing heroic courage in a battle fought by 
 the Gallic Legion against the Germans, near the con- 
 fluence of the Mozelle and Rhine. 
 
 It was not till twenty years of loneliness and sor- 
 row had passed, that Veda in her turn followed those 
 she had so greatly loved. The remembrance of the 
 Druidess was long cherished by the Gauls of the 
 Valley of La Roche. 
 
108 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 EIGHTH VIEW. 
 
 Revolts of Sarcovir, Vindex, Civilis and Sabinus. A dis- 
 tinct Gallic Empire from Posthumus to Tetricus. — Insurrec- 
 tion of the Bagaudae. — Confederation of Alemanni and of 
 Franks. — Probus, Constantius Chlorus, Constantine, Con- 
 stantius, Julian, Valentinian, Abrogast, Alaric, Aetius, 
 Atilla, Cladion, Merowig. — State of Latinized Gaul. — Archi- 
 tectural and engineering works and chief cities of Alsace. 
 — Roman roads. — Introduction of Christianity. — Invasion of 
 Gaul in the fifth century — Condition of Alsace upon arrival 
 of Attila: — Scene descriptive of the ravages of the Huns. 
 
 For five centuries, Gaul made part of the Roman 
 Empire, and was one of its most powerful and flour- 
 ishing provinces; from the time of the reign of 
 Augustus, there were not more than three uprisings 
 of any importance. 
 
 In the year 21, A. D., the Aedui and some other 
 tribes revolted against Tiberius. Their leaders were 
 Florus, of the Treviri, and the Aeduan Sarcovir. 
 After a first defeat, Florus killed himself, while 
 Sarcovir continued the struggle, finally retiring to 
 Autun, which he had previously captured. How- 
 ever, seeing the futility of his position, he went 
 with his principal chieftains to an isolated dwelling 
 in the country, where he committed suicide. His 
 friends then fired the house and killed one another. 
 
 In the year 68, the Aedui, the Sequani and the 
 Arverni, under the command of Vindex, proclaimed 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. IOO, 
 
 as Emperor in opposition to Nero, Galba, command- 
 er of the Spanish Legions. The coalition was de- 
 stroyed by Virginius, Commander of the Legions 
 of the Rhine, and Vindex ran himself through with 
 his own sword. 
 
 The next year Civilis stirred up the Belgae, the 
 Treviri and the Lingores, and proclaimed a Gallic 
 Empire, with Sabinus, a member of the last named 
 tribe, as head. Vanquished by the Sequani, whom 
 he had attacked because they remained faithful to 
 Rome, Sabinus had the report spread that he had 
 perished in the burning of his own dwelling, to 
 which he himself had set fire. In reality, he had 
 taken refuge in an underground vault, where he 
 lived for nine years with the aid of his wife, Epo- 
 nina, who meanwhile bore him two children. The 
 unfortunate family was at last captured and led to 
 Vespasian. 
 
 "See," Eponina said to the Emperor, as she 
 pointed to her children: "I have nutured them in 
 a tomb, that with me they might demand your grace 
 for their father." Then perceiving that her prayer 
 was denied, she added : "Put me to death with 
 him ; for I prefer the night of the grave to the light 
 of day sullied by the sight of you." Vespasian, 
 sparing only the children, delivered the two Gauls 
 up to torture. Civilis, who had maintained his po- 
 sition in the north, in the year 70 concluded an hon- 
 orable peace, which put an end to the efforts made 
 by the Gauls through their love of independence. 
 
 They succeeded, however, in becoming a distinct 
 empire in 259, but it was under a Roman general, 
 Postlutmus. He made a splendid repulse of the 
 Barbarians, who for a long: time had been incessant 
 
IIO ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 in their attacks. This Restorer of the Gauls, as he 
 was called, was assassinated, with his son, by his 
 own soldiers, whom he had refused to allow to sack 
 Mayence. Three other emperors followed in turn, 
 and then the line ended in Tetricus, who was de- 
 feated by Aurelian, and surrendered to him in 270. 
 
 No sentiment of patriotism caused the insurrec- 
 tion which broke out toward the end of the third 
 century; it was due entirely to the poverty from 
 which Gaul was suffering, drained as she was by 
 the -ever-increasing taxes which Rome exacted of 
 her provinces. The Gallic peasants under the name 
 of Bagaudae, rose in a mass, laid waste city and 
 country, and were put down only after a number of 
 battles, the last of which took place near the con- 
 fluence of the Seine and the Marne. 
 
 To protect its Rhenish frontiers, the Empire had 
 to wage incessant warfare against the invading 
 hordes of the nations whose westward progress had 
 been checked by the river, that thus became the 
 separating line between the race of the Celts and 
 the various peoples who had successively originated 
 from the north and east. Among these hordes two 
 great confederations stood out, formed by different 
 elements, as their names indicated — Alemanni (men 
 of all tribes), and Franks (free men). 
 
 In the year 277, the Franks, accompanied by Bur- 
 gundias and Vandals, invaded Gaul, capturing and 
 pillaging seventy cities and towns. They were driven 
 back across the Rhine by Probus, to whom the Al- 
 satians and the other Gauls owe the introduction 
 of vine culture. 
 
 In 292, Gaul, Spain and Great Britain were united 
 in a single government, established by Diocletian, 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. Ill 
 
 and by him confided first to Constantius Chlorus, 
 and then to his son Constantine. In 310, the latter 
 gained a great victory over the Franks, and in 320 
 Crispus, during his imperial rule, defeated them 
 again, as he also did the Alemanni, thus confirm- 
 ing the peace that Alsace had enjoyed since the ad- 
 vent of Constantine. 
 
 During the reign of Constantine's son, Constan- 
 tius, Gaul was again ravaged by the Germans, who 
 after sacking forty-five towns, settled on the west 
 bank of the Rhine in the northern part of Alsace. 
 To put an end to this alarming invasion, Constan- 
 tius sent into Gaul his cousin and brother-in-law, 
 Julian, then twenty-four years old, and thus far 
 more interested in literary studies than in the mili- 
 tary art. 
 
 The young general had numerous obstacles to 
 surmount, for he arrived in the middle of winter, 
 to take command of an army small in numbers, badly 
 disciplined, and for the most part under the com- 
 mand of a leader who infamously withdrew his 
 troops from battle, leaving Julian to face thirty-five 
 thousand men with thirteen thousand. In spite of 
 this betrayal, the enemy were killed, captured or 
 hurled into the Rhine, near Argentoratum, and on 
 the way back to his winter quarters Julian captured 
 a considerable body of Franks that he surprised on 
 the banks of the Meuse. 
 
 After passing the end of the winter of 358 at 
 Lutetia (Paris) in the palace of the Thermes, Julian 
 cleared the entire west bank of the Rhine of the 
 barbarian hordes, and forced them to return twenty 
 thousand legionary soldiers, who had become their 
 captives in the course of the preceding years. 
 
112 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 After the death of Julian the barbarians invaded 
 the north of Gaul anew, and from 365 to 368 Val- 
 entinian was occupied in resisting them, crushing 
 them out, or driving them back across the Rhine. 
 During this time he had a series of forts and towers 
 built along the river from its course to the sea, for 
 the protection of the west bank. From 375 to 395 
 the successors of Valentinian admitted some of the 
 barbarian chieftains to the highest offices of the 
 Empire, and one of them, Abrogast, was put at the 
 head of the army of Gaul. 
 
 In 406, Alaric, breaking through all obstacles, 
 even captured Rome. The Burgundians had become 
 established between Lake Geneva and the confluence 
 of the Rhine and Moselle, while the Suevi, the Van- 
 dals and the Alans swarmed over the Pyrenees, 
 without attempting to settle in Gaul. In 412, the 
 southern part of the country was occupied by the 
 Visigoths, the northeastern part by the Franks, and 
 only a portion of the center was kept free from the 
 invaders by the Roman, General Stilicho. Aetius, 
 who replaced him in this command, routed these 
 stranger hordes and put them to flight in a number 
 of battles fought in the course of the years between 
 428 and 450. 
 
 In 451, Attila crossed the Rhine at the conflu- 
 ence of the Necker, destroyed Argentoratum, May- 
 ence, Metz and other towns, massacred the inhabi- 
 tants of the region, and ravaged all the northeast- 
 ern portion of Gaul. Aetius, reinforced by the 
 Franks, the Burgundians, the Alans, the Visigoths, 
 who were already established in Gaul, and some 
 Saxons whom the sea had driven upon the coast of 
 Normandy, forced Attila to retreat into the plains 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. II3 
 
 of Champagne, and destroyed his army in a great 
 battle near Chalons. 
 
 So Gaul was delivered from the Huns ; but it was 
 still partitioned among the different nations which 
 had formerly invaded it and which continued to ex- 
 pand there. The Franks, governed successively by 
 Clodion, Merowig and Childeric, possessed the 
 whole of southern Gaul, when in 481, Clovis, the 
 son of Childeric, succeeded his father. 
 
 This epoch may be considered to have terminated 
 the Gallo-Roman period, during which Alsace and 
 the western borders of the Rhine continued to be, 
 as they had been since the arrival of the Celts, the 
 theatre of perpetual warfare between the Gallic and 
 German peoples. 
 
 From the second century, Gaul had become en- 
 tirely Latinized in language and mode of life, par- 
 ticularly among the upper classes. The schools of 
 Autun, Lyons, Bordeaux and Marseilles were fa- 
 mous, and furnished great numbers of grammarians 
 and orators, not only for the country itself but even 
 for Rome. The people adopted the use of a new 
 language, the Romance, which forms the ground- 
 work of the dialect still spoken in our own time in 
 the highland districts of the Vosges valleys of La 
 Roche, Diepvre, Sainte-Marie-Aux-Mines, Orbey, 
 Lapoutroye and Giromagny, and in the vicinity of 
 Belfort. 
 
 Gaul was filled with temples, triumphal arches, 
 aqueducts, baths, amphitheatres, monuments, sump- 
 tuous villas, and wonderful roads bordered by se- 
 pulchres. The fountains, the public squares, and 
 even private houses, were adorned with statues of 
 marble and various metals. On all sides rose altars, 
 
114 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 both public and private, the greater part of them 
 erected in honor of Mercury. 
 
 The Romans also enlarged and fortified many 
 Alsatian towns, among others Mons Brisiacus, Old 
 Brisach, then situated on the west bank of the 
 Rhine, but which the river left definitely on the 
 east bank, at the ' beginning of the fourteenth cen- 
 tury, after having swept around first one and then 
 the other side of it, and even both sides at a time, 
 for more than three hundred years. Among all 
 these Alsatian towns, Argentoratum was the most 
 important, on account of its pre-eminence in the 
 manufacture of arms. It produced battering rams, 
 coats of mail, shields, helmets, swords, lances, bows 
 and arrows, gauntlets and shoes with iron trim- 
 mings, and practiced the arts of gilding, silvering 
 and chasing armor and weapons. 
 
 As in the other parts of Gaul, the cities in Alsace 
 were embellished with architectural works of Roman 
 construction; yet no remains of theatres, aqueducts 
 or arches are to be found in them. The temples 
 alone were numerous, and remains of them have 
 been uncovered in the vicinity of Dagsbourg, at 
 Augst, on Mount Donon, and about Altstadt and 
 Niederbronn; the one on the Rhine road, at Ott- 
 marsheim, still exists entire, and is actually used as 
 a church. So far as concerns the temples in the 
 large towns, they were mingled in the general ruins, 
 at their devastation by the hordes of Attila and the 
 other barbarians. 
 
 The vestiges of a bath were found at Bronxwiller, 
 in 1735; and a century later the remains of a bath- 
 ing establishment were discovered in a vineyard near 
 Bernheim. Among them was a large and superb 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. II5 
 
 mosaic, in a state of perfect preservation, which 
 appeared to have served as the floor of a vast pool or 
 room, and was still surrounded by ruined walls. 
 As this remarkable piece of work could neither be 
 preserved on the spot where it was found nor left 
 to go to ruin there, it was transported to the mu- 
 seum at Colmar, where it occupies a considerable 
 part of the floor space of the old church of the Un- 
 terlinden. It is to be regretted that a little of its 
 original perfection was lost through the inevitable 
 difficulties of transferring it. 
 
 All about Alsace, as evidences of the Gallo-Ro- 
 man epoch, are found coins, tiles, tombs, sculptured 
 stone, statues, altars, weapons and pottery. The 
 Colmar Museum possesses a great number of these 
 antiquities, most of which were found in the village 
 of Horbourg, lying on the 111, a kilometer from the 
 city that itself occupies the site of ancient Argento- 
 varia. 
 
 Roads and fortifications were the chief work of 
 the Romans in Alsace. The highways established 
 by them, remains of which are still to be seen at 
 many points, took the following routes : From 
 Ottrott to Altitona (Sainte-Odile) ; from Besancon 
 to the Rhine; from Italy, by way of Switzerland, 
 to Augst, Kembs, Ottmarsheim, Banzenheim, Bris- 
 ach, Ell, Strasbourg, Mayence, and on to the mouth 
 of the Rhine; from the country of the Rauraci to 
 Soleure, in Helvetia, by way of Montpertuis and 
 the valley of the Birs ; from Besancon to Mandeure, 
 Granvillars, Largitzen and Kembs; from Illsach to 
 Brisach ; from Thann to Epinal, through the valley 
 of Saint- Amarin ; from Horbourg to Elsenheim, 
 Markolsheim and Ell ; from Strasbourg to Brumath, 
 
Il6 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Lauterbourg and Spire; from Brumath to Saverne 
 and Metz; from Alsace into Lorraine, through the 
 valley of Schirmeck; and from Alsace into Lor- 
 raine through the valley of Villi. 
 
 The village of Ell just mentioned, is situated on 
 the right bank of the 111, near Benfeld, three 
 leagues from Strasbourg. On the site which it 
 occupies between these two cities, there stood in 
 the Roman period the town of Helvetus, which must 
 have been very flourishing if we may judge from 
 the number and importance of the Roman antiqui- 
 ties that have been found there, including statues 
 of Pallas and other divinities, and altars dedicated 
 to Mercury, Hercules, Minerva, Vesta and Apollo. 
 At Benfeld, not far away, is said to have been a 
 temple of Mercury, which was demolished by Saint 
 Maternus, supposedly the first apostle of Christian- 
 ity in Alsace, toward the end of the third century. 
 
 It is generally admitted that Saint Amand was 
 the first Bishop of Strasbourg, in the last half of 
 the fourth century, but that there was no well or- 
 ganized Christian Church in Alsace before the sixth 
 century. It was not until then that the bishopric 
 of Strasbourg was firmly established, later than that 
 of Metz, and very much later than that of Lyons, 
 which, during the first three hundred years of our 
 era, possessed the largest Christian community of 
 all those established in Gaul. 
 
 The turmoil, invasion, devastation and slaughter 
 that were heaped upon Gaul during the final years 
 of the Gallo-Roman period, forbade the development 
 of original or characteristic traits among the various 
 peoples; the cruel fortunes they suffered together, 
 submerged all individualties in a general cataclysm, 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 1 7 
 
 and the history of each family must have been con- 
 fused with that of all the others, in the total of the 
 common misfortunes, so that no one of them could 
 be separately sketched. But it is fitting to give a 
 rapid glance at some of the atrocities of which cer- 
 tain Gallic communities were the scene during this 
 epoch. 
 
 Alsace had scarcely begun to recover from the 
 ravages of the Bungundian invasion, when the fierce 
 hordes of Attila swept down upon it. A part of 
 the inhabitants sought refuge in the mountains, tak- 
 ing with them the remnants of their former for- 
 tunes, and leading the few farm animals they still 
 possessed. There, they were further reduced by 
 want, while the army of the Huns was advancing 
 in the plain, destroying as it went Argentoratum, 
 Helvetus, Brisaccia and Argentovaria, only a few 
 isolated bands penetrating beyond into the Rau- 
 racian lands, now occupied by the Brugundians, who 
 had established themselves throughout the region 
 of the Jura. 
 
 In this territory, near the spot where Rouffach is 
 to-day, was a little town, fortified, as all towns of 
 the time were, to whose scanty population had been 
 added a small number of fugitives escaped from the 
 capture and destruction of the nearest military posts 
 on the Rhine. The townspeople did not doubt that 
 their ruin was inevitable and near at hand, when 
 the enemy destroyed Argentovaria, from which they 
 were only four leagues distant ; nevertheless, they 
 resolved to defend to the last ditch the remnants of 
 their fortifications, which they had not yet had time 
 since the last invasion to repair. They sent away 
 the old men and the women and children, to whom 
 
Il8 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 some refuge might be open in the Vosges, and pre- 
 pared to see the others share a common fate. 
 
 A number of these fugitives were taken by Sex- 
 tus Halcovir, a patrician of the town, to a villa 
 which he owned in the mountains, where he was 
 going to seek refuge for his old mother, his wife 
 and his two daughters, girls of about twenty. There 
 were besides three sons belonging to this family, 
 but they had been left behind to take their part in 
 the defense of the town. 
 
 Halcovir's villa had escaped in the preceding in- 
 vasions on account of its secluded situation in the 
 little valley of Soultzmath, and on account of the 
 very conformation of this lovely and fertile Vosges 
 valley itself. This fold in the mountains, well 
 known in our day for its excellent mineral springs 
 and the fine quality of its grapes, has no connection 
 with the plain save by a rather narrow gorge, and 
 instead of sloping upward to the summits east and 
 west of it, as the Vosges valleys generally do, it 
 crouches so to put it, at the foot of the mountains 
 that girdle it about, making a basin parallel to their 
 north and south direction. 
 
 These topographical conditions had hitherto pro- 
 tected Halcovir's fine villa, which he ordinarily left 
 to the care of his farmers, shepherds and others of 
 his dependents. This little group of retainers was 
 now reinforced by the company of old men, women 
 and children brought along by Halcovir with his 
 mother, his wife and his children. 
 
 A party of foraging Huns, who were scouring 
 the country about ruined Argentovaria, in search 
 of provisions and plunder, made a dash upon the 
 defences of the little Rauracian village, with the ex- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. II9 
 
 pectation of gaining immediate possession. But they 
 met a repulse from its defenders, who protected the 
 breeches with their weapons and even their bodies. 
 
 Yet however determined was this defense, it 
 could do no more than prolong the agony of the 
 little town. The Huns collected in greater num- 
 bers, assailed the town anew the next day, forced 
 a way in over the dead bodies of the vanquished 
 Gauls, massacred all still left alive, plundered the 
 place, and reduced it to ashes. 
 
 Two of Halcovir's sons perished in the fight, but 
 the third, whom a number of wounds had rendered 
 incapable of bearing arms, had retired from the 
 walls before the entrance of the Huns, and suc- 
 ceeded in escaping and reaching his father's villa, 
 where he arrived covered with blood, and hardly 
 alive, spreading terror by his appearance. 
 
 Dare they still hope that the gorge leading into 
 the valley would escape detection by the enemy's 
 scouts — sole chance of safety for the refugees ? The 
 hope was of short duration, for two days after the 
 arrival of Halcovir's only remaining son, the pickets 
 who had been stationed at the points of approach 
 from the plain, saw a troop of barbarian marauders 
 entering the passage which led to the valley. They 
 ran to the villa with the fatal news, and all knew 
 that they must now perish. 
 
 But Halcovir was determined to make a last ef- 
 fort to save the women and children, and he pre- 
 pared to have them led away into the forests of the 
 neighboring mountains, to the west of the valley. 
 Choosing one of his retainers to direct them, he ad- 
 jured the others to resist the Huns with him, so as 
 to keep them as long as possible at the villa. The 
 
120 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 brave fellows thus besought by the master they 
 loved, all promised to wage a desperate fight; but 
 they demanded as a condition, that not one of them- 
 selves, but Halcovir, should guide the little band of 
 fugitives, since his age and his strength would ren- 
 der him more useful to them than he could be in 
 the defense of the villa. Time was pressing, and 
 without useless argument Halcovir led the unfortu- 
 nate creatures he was trying to save into the nearest 
 wood. 
 
 As soon as they had entered the valley, and had 
 seen at its extremity the villa with its group of im- 
 posing buildings, the Huns broke into cries of as- 
 tonishment and delight; but as they did not know 
 what opposition they might have to encounter, they 
 approached cautiously and with closed ranks. 
 
 The men who had dedicated themselves to the 
 project of detaining the Huns as long as possible in 
 the vicinity of the villa, had armed themselves and 
 hidden in as advantageous positions as they could 
 find, following in this the advice of Halcovir's son, 
 who leaning painfully upon his sword, that he no 
 longer had the strength to wield, desired to die 
 with his companions, and in face of the enemy. 
 
 Not perceiving any hostile movement from the di- 
 rection of the villa, the Huns at length approached 
 it boldy, and made a dash against the great gate 
 which gave entrance to it. Here they were held in 
 check a moment by a shower of arrows that fell 
 upon the foremost of them; but the very feebleness 
 of the attack made it perfectly clear that they had 
 no serious resistance to fear, and they rushed wildly 
 into the villa. 
 
 In groups of two or three, the brave Rauraci re- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 121 
 
 tired from post to post, prolonging as far as they 
 could their hopeless struggle ; then one after another 
 they succumbed, valiantly righting to their deaths. 
 
 Now the Huns began their pillage. One party of 
 them carried all the valuables outside the villa, de- 
 stroying everything else as they went along, and 
 then ravaged the gardens, breaking to pieces the 
 statuary and fountains. Others got together what 
 provisions of food the villa contained, upon which 
 they meant to live, and casks of wine, from which 
 they would soon intoxicate themselves. Still others 
 herded together the stock grazing in the meadows, 
 preparatory to leading it away. 
 
 These last of the marauders were not long in 
 finding traces of the unfortunate little party which 
 had escaped with Halcovir, and they at once set out 
 in pursuit. They soon overtook the group of wo- 
 men and children, who were already spent with 
 fatigue and fright. Surrounding them, the Huns 
 made them turn back towards the villa, first brutally 
 beating their guide, and attaching a cord around his 
 neck, by which one of the barbarians led him. 
 
 Seeing from the start that Halcovir's mother and 
 two others of the older women could not keep up 
 with the rest, the Huns struck them down on the 
 spot, leaving them there to await the end of their 
 agony. 
 
 When the villa was reached the victims were 
 given over to the most horrible ordeals, and their 
 butchers began an orgy of drunkenness, torture and 
 blood. As their sack of the villa had brought only 
 small sums of money to light, the Huns thought 
 Halcovir must be concealing greater amounts in 
 some secret place, and in their efforts to force him 
 
122 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 to give this up, they submitted him at intervals to 
 the crudest ordeals. They began by breaking his 
 teeth; then they tore out one of his eyes; next 
 they forced him to stand with live coals under his 
 feet; and finally, enraged that they could not even 
 draw an outcry from him, they stretched his body 
 on the ground, bound it down immovably, and ap- 
 plied to his breast and elsewhere the red hot irons 
 of pikes and arrows. While those most greedy for 
 plunder were thus satisfying their savage instincts 
 upon the only living man they had within their 
 power, others of the Huns seized the women and 
 children. The little ones they strangled or smoth- 
 ered, beat out their brains against the rocks, crushed 
 their bodies with stones, or threw them into the air 
 and caught them on the points of pikes or swords 
 as they fell. As for the women, their fate was 
 more frightful than that of the children torn from 
 their arms. 
 
 When there were left only dead bodies and a few 
 dying victims whose tortures a spark of life was 
 still cruelly prolonging, the Huns set fire to the 
 buildings, gathered up their plunder, and with this 
 and the cattle they had been able to herd, set out 
 from the deserted valley, leaving behind only the 
 slowly dying fires of the ruins of the Gallic villa. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I23 
 
 NINTH VIEW. 
 
 Reign of Clovis. — Kingdom of Austrasia. — Dagobert I. — ■ 
 Dukes, Marquises, Counts, Barons. — Mayors of the Palace. 
 — Attich, first Duke of Alsace — Sundgau and Nordgau. — 
 Condition of Alsace under the Merovingian Kings. — Pippin 
 of Heristal. — Charles Martel. — Pippin the Short — Royal 
 Residences and Monasteries in Alsace. — Castles of the 
 Nobles. — Legend of Saint Odile. 
 
 At the death of Childeric, in 481, his power passed 
 into the hands of his son Clovis, then fifteen years 
 old, and at the head of a small army of four thou- 
 sand warriors, which was occupying the city of 
 Tournai and the country about. 
 
 In conjunction with Ragnashar, King of Cam- 
 bria, Clovis defeated the Roman General Syagrius 
 at Soissons in 486, and had him decapitated. This 
 made Clovis master of the country lying between 
 the Loire and the Somme. 
 
 In 492, he married a Christian, Clotilda, the niece 
 of a Burgundian King. Three years later he fought 
 a great battle against the Alemanni, near the Rhine, 
 not far from Strasbourg, the ancient Argentoratum 
 of the Gauls, which now bore the name of Argentina. 
 He was victorious, and drove the Alemanni back 
 across the Rhine. It was after this successful battle 
 of Tolbiac that Clovis presented himself for baptism 
 to the Bishop Saint Remy at Rheims, and thus 
 gained the support of all the clergy of Gaul. 
 
124 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 He now gave Alsace the enjoyment of a long 
 peace, during which its cities and villages rose from 
 their ruins and saw the rebirth of commerce and 
 industry in their midst. All their inhabitants now 
 embraced Christianity. 
 
 After defeating the Visigoths, at Vouille, near 
 Poitiers, in 507, Clovis attacked Provence, and was 
 defeated before Aries, in 508. After having insti- 
 gated the murder of the Frankish Kings of Saint 
 Omer, Cambrai, the Mans, and Cologne, he died in 
 511, leaving to his four sons a kingdom which ex- 
 tended from the lower Rhine to the Loire. In the 
 partition they made of it, Thierry was given the 
 sovereignty of all the northeastern part of ancient 
 Gaul, and this country, which included Alsace, took 
 the name of Austrasia. 
 
 It would be going quite outside the limits of dis- 
 cussion of the facts showing the connection of Al- 
 sace with the other parts of Gaul, to rehearse all the 
 occurrences, invariably sanguinary and frequently 
 barbarous, which contributed under the Meroving- 
 ian kings to the completion of the conquests of the 
 Franks. We shall therefore point out only those 
 directly connected with Alsace, as the part of the 
 Frankish domain interesting to us. 
 
 In 628, Dagobert I., succeeding his father, 
 Clothar II., came into possession of the whole em- 
 pire of the Franks, which then extended from the 
 Elbe to the Pyrenees, and from the Western Ocean 
 to the frontiers of Hungary and Bohemia. In spite 
 of the wisdom and skill with which he governed, 
 Dagobert saw two blows given to his power which 
 were the prelude to the decadence of the Meroving- 
 ians. In outside affairs the Saxons refused him the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 25 
 
 tribute they owed, the Thuringians demanded a 
 special governor, and a new state, that of the Vene- 
 tians, was formed on the borders of the Danube. 
 At home, the high military functionaries raised their 
 pretentions to a more and more considerable author- 
 ity, thus laying the foundations of the feudal sys- 
 tem, which, during the following centuries, was to 
 weaken and often neutralize the sovereign power. 
 
 These military offices were those of dukes or 
 governors of provinces; marquises, charged with 
 defending the frontiers; and counts, ministers of 
 affairs in the duchies. 
 
 Originally these positions were confided to chiefs 
 chosen by the king, with the right of dismissal ; but 
 they soon became hereditary, thus limiting his re- 
 sources of action. The royal authority was still 
 further trammeled by the creation in the great states 
 of Neustria and Austrasia of Mayors of the Palace, 
 who from simple king's ministers, raised their own 
 power little by little till they dominated their mas- 
 ters and finally replaced them. It must, however, 
 be remembered that the thing which gave the most 
 sinister blow to the power of the Franks was the 
 fatal partition of his kingdom among his sons made 
 by every monarch who had succeeded in uniting un- 
 der his own government all the regions which had 
 submitted to the Frankish rule. 
 
 Among the great dignitaries and government of- 
 ficials of this epoch, was Ettich or Attich, the first 
 Duke of Alsace, elevated to this high position in 670, 
 by Childebert II., King of Austrasia, who died by 
 assassination, after he had wrested Bourgoyne and 
 Neustria from his brother Theodoric, and shut him 
 up in a monastery at Saint Denis. 
 
126 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 At that time Alsace was divided into two regions, 
 or Gau : — the Sundgau, to the south, and the Nord- 
 gau, to the north. Attich had his residence at Ober- 
 nai, at the foot of Mount Altitona, on whose sum- 
 mit he built a great castle called Hohenburg. His 
 wife, Berswinda, bore him a number of children, 
 who were, in the male line, the founders of the fami- 
 lies of the Dukes of Lorraine, the Counts of Eguis- 
 heim in Alsace, the Counts of Roussillon, Flanders, 
 and Paris, the Landgraves of Hapsbourg, Sach- 
 ringen and Bade; and in the female line, of the 
 Salian emperors of Germany, the families of the 
 Hohenstaufen, and the Capets in France. 
 
 In 687, Pippin of Heristal was proclaimed major 
 domus of all the Frankish states, and after his death, 
 in 714, his son Charles Martel was recognized as 
 Duke of Austrasia by the seigniors of that country. 
 In 719 he possessed all the powers his father had 
 had. He died in 741, after reigning under the title 
 of Duke of the Franks. 
 
 During this real sovereignty, to which nothing 
 but the title of king was lacking, Charles Martel 
 again reduced the Saxons to obedience, as well as 
 the Bavarians and the Alemanni, and in 732, near 
 Poitiers, he crushed a formidable army of Saracens 
 who, under the command of Abd-er-Rahman, had 
 traversed the Pyrenees and the whole Midi of 
 France. 
 
 In 752, his son Pippin the Short seized the crown 
 of the Merovingians, two hundred and seventy-one 
 years after the accession of Clovis. 
 
 During this period the customs of the Franks had 
 imposed themselves upon the Gallic nation. They 
 generally fought on foot, with the sword, the pike 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 12J 
 
 and the two-edged battle ax for weapons, and their 
 only pay was a share in the spoils. 
 
 Their king was the head of the army, and the 
 first soldier of the nation. His accession was pro- 
 claimed by raising him on a shield. He had abso- 
 lute power to make peace, war, and alliances; to 
 regulate the taxes, and to name the dukes and 
 counts, whom he usually chose from among the 
 barons, or chief nobles. The nobility formed the 
 highest class of the nation, next came the freemen, 
 and then the serfs and slaves. 
 
 The administrators and judges in the villages 
 were the "heads of a hundred" ; in the larger cen- 
 ters of population they were the counts and dukes. 
 The soldiers were under the jurisdiction of the mili- 
 tary chiefs, and the lesser ecclesiastics under that of 
 the bishops. The Franks were governed by the 
 Salic laws, the Gauls of the Midi by Roman law, 
 the Gauls of the north by codes peculiar to each 
 tribe. 
 
 Among these codes, which were greatly varied 
 and all barbaric, there were admitted trial by boil- 
 ing water, into which the arm must be plunged; by 
 burning irons, which must be seized by the hand; 
 by cold water, where the innocent floated and the 
 guilty sank; and by duel, when the two champions 
 fought, the one in favor of the accused, the other 
 for his downfall. 
 
 The Latin language, already corrupted by its mix- 
 ture with the Gallic during the Gallo-Roman period, 
 became more impure under the Merovingian rule, 
 and finally settled into the popular idiom known 
 under the name of Lingua roniana, from which came 
 the French language with its Latin, Greek, Celtic 
 and Frankish elements. 
 
128 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 From the decadence in architecture, there resulted 
 a new style that was later called Romance, like the 
 language, because it aimed at the imitation of Ro- 
 man buildings. 
 
 Science and letters had almost disappeared dur- 
 ing this lamentable phase of the history of the 
 Gauls, and what remnants of them there were, lay 
 altogether in the obscure labors of a few monks, 
 devoted toilers, but for the most part ignorant and 
 superstitious. Some of them wrote chronicles and 
 looked after the preservation of ancient manuscripts, 
 while others scraped the parchments that bore 
 these precious manuscripts, in order to use them for 
 writing out marvelous legends and incredible tales. 
 
 Like the other parts of Gaul, Alsace was subject 
 to the conditions we have been mentioning ; but she 
 had the advantage of enjoying continual security 
 under the Frankish kings, and of their disposition 
 to inhabit this beautiful country, either temporarily 
 or in more permanent .fashion, as did the son of 
 Dagobert II. Thus she recovered a part of her 
 earlier prosperity, and saw new cities rising in her 
 territory at the same time that the old ones were be- 
 ginning to flourish again. Among the latter was 
 Basel, then belonging to Alsace ; Brisach, which was 
 still on the left bank of the Rhine ; Saverne, fortified 
 by the Merovingians ; and Strasbourg or Argentina, 
 rebuilt upon the ruins of Argentoratum, where 
 Clovis, they say, erected during the years from 504 
 to 510, the first Christian church, on the site of the 
 ancient temple of Hercules, where to-day the city's 
 fine cathedral stands. 
 
 Without these fortified towns the Alsatian plain 
 was covered with numbers of chateaux and farms, 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 29 
 
 the former belonging to the royal domains, and the 
 latter to rich seigniors. 
 
 The chief royal residences and dependances were 
 Sirens, Illzach, Isenbourg (Isenheim), Rouffach, 
 Columbaria (Colmar), Selotistat (Schlestadt), 
 Horinstein (Erstein), Marien, Kirchheim, Koenigs- 
 hoven, Sueshausen, and Saloissa (Seltz). 
 
 Numerous convents and monasteries were also 
 built in Alsace. The oldest is that of Marmontier, 
 a league distant from Saverne, which was erected 
 in 590. Then came, in chronological order, the fol- 
 lowing: Munster, founded in 660, in the valley of 
 Saint Gregory (Valley of Munster) ; Hohenburg, 
 erected by Attich for his daughter Saint Odile at 
 the close of the seventh century; Ebersheim, also 
 founded by Attich ; Wissembourg, Blidenveld, Saar- 
 bourg, Haslach, Saint Thomas (of Strasbourg), 
 and Saint Sigismond (of Rouffach), all built at the 
 same epoch by Dagobert II, or under his protection ; 
 Niedermunster, built by Sainte Odile in 700; Saint 
 Etienne (of Strasbourg), erected by Adelbert, the 
 son of Attich; Massevaux and Murbach, founded 
 in 724 by Mason and Evrard, sons of Adelbert; 
 Neuviller, built between 722 and 744 by Sigvald, 
 Bishop of Metz; Leberau, in the valley of Liepvre, 
 and Saint Hippolyte, that Fulrade had erected in 
 722; Haschow (Eschau), founded in 778 by Remi, 
 Bishop of Strasbourg; Erstein, built by Hermen- 
 garde, wife of Lothaire I. ; Saint Eleon, built at 
 Audlan by Richarde, wife of Charles the Fat. 
 
 The number of these convents increased remark- 
 ably in the course of the following centuries. 
 
 It was the same with the castles or Burgs, which 
 arose one after another on the summits of the 
 
I3O ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Vosges, in imitation of that of Hohenburg, that the 
 Duke Attich had built on Mount Altitona, above 
 his princely residence at Obernai. 
 
 The important role which history assigns to At- 
 tich, his family and his posterity, makes it neces- 
 sary to find place here for the interesting legend of 
 his daughter, Sainte Odile. 
 
 It was in 662 that Bereswind first presented her 
 husband, Attich, with a child. He wished for a 
 son, and was greatly disturbed by the announce- 
 ment of the birth of a daughter, which his wife's 
 old nurse had come to make to him. He was at 
 table, surrounded by friends and the officers of his 
 household, whose remarks were not intended to 
 lessen his sensitiveness and disappointment. Under 
 the stress of his feelings, he refused to go to look 
 at his daughter, and ordered that she be kept en- 
 tirely in the hands of the women. Then he broke 
 out in a fury when he learned that the daughter 
 just born to him was blind ; for he looked upon the 
 birth of the imperfect child as a disgrace. "Let 
 her be killed," he cried, "and let the matter never 
 afterward be mentioned in my family !" 
 
 To save the life of her daughter, Bereswind had 
 her taken away that very night by the old nurse, 
 who confided her to the care of a relative living in 
 one of the villages of the plain. But this hiding 
 place not seeming to the unhappy mother a safe 
 enough one, she sent a message to a friend of hers, 
 the superior of a convent at Palma (Baume-les- 
 Dames), in Franche-Comte, asking if she would 
 not give protection to the feeble and innocent vic- 
 tim of paternal pride. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I3I 
 
 The child was received at the convent and 
 brought up there, where she made herself more and 
 more beloved as she grew older, because of her love- 
 liness of character and her piety. When she had 
 passed her girlhood she was baptized by Saint Ehr- 
 hardt, Bishop of Bavaria, received the name of 
 Odile, and beginning from this moment was gradu- 
 ally healed of her blindness. 
 
 Odile knew about her family, and that she had 
 been completely forgotten by her father, who sup- 
 posed her to have been killed by his orders, on the 
 very day of her birth. She hesitated to take her 
 vows, for she cherished a hope of some day return- 
 ing to her parents, and taking her place beside the 
 brothers who had been born after her. She resolved 
 to inform one of these brothers, Hugues, of her ex- 
 istence, and of the situation in which she found 
 herself, and she sent him, hidden in a ball of silk, 
 a letter telling him of these things. 
 
 One day as the young man was mounting the 
 road from Obernai to Hohenbourg on horseback, 
 an old woman stepped out of the brushwood bor- 
 dering the path, and came toward him, saying: 
 "Seignior, take this ball of silk, and remember it is 
 by breaking the shell that one finds the kernel." 
 Hugues took what she offered him, and continued 
 on his way, while the old woman disappeared. 
 
 As soon as he had removed the mysterious cover- 
 ing and read the message it contained, the brother 
 of Odile felt a warm affection for this unknown 
 sister spring up in his heart, and on the mor- 
 row he told his father of the young girl's existence, 
 and of the miracle God had wrought for her in giv- 
 ing her back her sight. 
 
I32 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Hugues was greatly grieved by the coldness with 
 which his confidence was received. The only result 
 of it was a command never again to speak to his 
 father of a daughter looked upon as dead from the 
 moment of her birth. 
 
 In spite of his first failure, Hugues hoped to over- 
 come the obstinacy of Attich. He sent a messenger 
 to his sister, with an escort of cavaliers sumptuously 
 arrayed, charged with delivering her a letter in 
 which he invited her to come to Hohenburg, dressed 
 with all the richness appropriate to her rank, and 
 surrounded by the warriors, who would heighten 
 the effect of her arrival at the ducal domain. 
 
 Odile followed out the wishes of her brother, and 
 a few days after her departure from Palma, a bril- 
 liant procession was seen advancing along the route 
 to Hohenburg. Surrounded by a retinue of women 
 and adorned with the richest of garments, the young 
 Saint sat in a chariot drawn by ten white oxen, 
 while the warriors, mounted and in shining armor, 
 rode in ranks on either side. 
 
 Attich, who was hunting with his son on the 
 mountain, caught sight of these travelers, whose 
 sumptuous array was such as only notables of the 
 highest rank might display. 
 
 "What woman," he asked Hugues, "can be com- 
 ing in such state to Hohenburg?" 
 
 "The daughter of the Duke of Alsace," replied 
 the young man, "is the only one who has the right 
 to travel in Alsace with so much pomp. That is 
 my sister, coming to claim her place among the 
 members of her family and in her father's heart." 
 
 "And is it you," demanded Attich, "who have, 
 dared invite her to take this outrageous step?" 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. ISI 
 
 Midi, by the ultra-Royalist tendencies of the "cham- 
 bre introuvable ," by the billion francs given to the 
 Emigres, the execution of the four young sergeants 
 of La Rochelle, the Ultramontane party's abuse of 
 its supreme influence, and the detestable proceed- 
 ings against the officers of the old army. 
 
 Public opinion was beginning to revolt against 
 the deplorable reaction, and was producing here and 
 there attempts at resistance, two of which had their 
 scene of action in the Department of Haut-Rhin. 
 
 At various points in France, a great conspiracy 
 was being organized to overturn the government 
 imposed by the hostile armies. The confederates 
 of Belfort were to take the initiative in the move- 
 ment, at the beginning of the year 1822, and de- 
 voted patriots from all sides hastened to that city. 
 From Paris came General LaFayette and his son, 
 Colonel Pailhes, Bazard, and many others; while 
 from New Brisach came Armand Carrel and Jou- 
 bert. But the denunciation of a panic-stricken petty 
 officer, caused the project to fail, and some of the 
 conspirators were obliged to turn back or take to 
 flight, while others were arrested at Belfort or even 
 in Switzerland, in defiance of the rights of that 
 country's neutrality. 
 
 Forty-four of the accused, in the midst of evi- 
 dences of the liveliest popular sympathy, were shut 
 up in the prison at Colmar, and remained there un- 
 der durance during the nine months of preliminary 
 proceedings before their appearance at the bar of 
 the court of assises of Haut-Rhin. 
 
 In spite of the efforts of the royal magistracy, the 
 Alsatian juries acquitted forty of the accused, and 
 condemned the other four — Pailhes, Guinard, Due- 
 
1 82 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 laud, and Tellier — to only five years in prison, a 
 fine of five thousand francs, and two years of sur- 
 veillance. These men alone were deprived of the 
 warm ovation which the citizens of Colmar gave to 
 their fellow-accused upon their coming out of prison. 
 
 During the same year, 1822, and during the in- 
 carceration of the conspirators of Belfort, the capi- 
 tal of Haut-Rhin was the theatre of one of the most 
 abominable events which happened during the 
 reign of Louis XVIII. It may well be recalled 
 here as a characteristic episode of that epoch. 
 
 Among the numerous officers either superannu- 
 ated or on half pay, who inhabitated Colmar, was a 
 brave Colonel of Dragoons named Caron. He lived 
 very quietly with his wife and a son of twelve, and 
 among the few friends he cultivated was an old 
 military man named Roger, now free from all con- 
 nection with military affairs. 
 
 Already known to hold opinions antagonistic to . 
 the Bourbons, these men had the imprudence to air 
 them in the presence of a number of under officers 
 of a regiment of light horse, on garrison duty at 
 Colmar. These under officers whose names were 
 Thiers, Gerard, Magnien and Delzaine, reported the 
 matter to their superiors, and were told to pretend 
 to lend their support to all Caron's propositions. 
 
 Thus encouraged by these agents of provocation, 
 Caron and Roger conceived a plan for the insurrec- 
 tion of the garrisons at Colmar and New Brisach, 
 and the deliverance of the Belfort conspirators. 
 
 To draw them on toward the execution of this 
 project, the under officers assured them that the 
 squadrons under their own command were at their 
 disposal, and even went so far as to put money into 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 83 
 
 their hands for defraying the initial expenses. 
 Finally they arrived at setting the day for taking 
 up arms. 
 
 The second of July, at the earliest appointed mo- 
 ment, Caron and Roger made their way to the spot 
 in the country where they were to be joined by a 
 squadron from Colmar and another from Brisach. 
 When the meeting had taken place, Caron arrayed 
 himself in the full dress costume of a colonel of 
 dragoons, and threw his civil costume among the 
 vines nearby. These garments were at once found 
 and taken to the Prefect by Quartermaster Mag- 
 nien. 
 
 Then Colonel Caron made a speech to the three 
 hundred light cavalry who had joined him, and who 
 were under orders to obey implicitly their under 
 officers, although they might see some of their su- 
 perior officers in the ranks, dressed as privates. 
 
 Caron's speech was answered with the cry, "Long 
 live the Emperor!" and the column set out in the 
 direction of Ensisheim, passing through several 
 populous villages, whose inhabitants fortunately 
 were not incited by the incessant repetition of this 
 cry. 
 
 Upon arriving at Battenheim, the soldiers refused 
 to go on to Ensisheim, and shortly afterward threw 
 themselves upon Caron and Roger, seized their 
 papers and their arms, and hoisted them, bound 
 hand and foot, into a cart, to take them back to 
 Colmar under guard of one of the squadrons, the 
 other having returned to New Brisach. 
 
 You may judge of the grievous astonishment of 
 the citizens of Colmar, when they saw passing 
 through their streets, this ignoble vehicle, guarded 
 
184 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 before, behind, and on both sides by the light horse. 
 On the one seat of the cart requisitioned at Batten- 
 heim, was Colonel Caron, bound with cords. His 
 uniform was covered with dust, and his fine head 
 with its circle of white hair about his bare crown, 
 and stript of its helmet, which had been thrown at 
 the prisoner's feet, was exposed to the burning mid- 
 day sun. Behind the rude seat lay Roger in bour- 
 geois dress, stretched out on a thin bed of straw. 
 
 After the incarceration of these two victims of 
 such odious treason, numbers of cavalry patrols cir- 
 culated in the streets until night- fall. The object 
 of this ridiculous farce was to permit the authori- 
 ties to state in their report to the Government, that 
 they had had to take . the measures necessary tor 
 preserving public tranquility. 
 
 Roger being a civilian, and it being impossible to 
 separate him and Caron in the affair, both should 
 have appeared before the Court of Assizes, for all 
 military tribunals were incompetent in Roger's case. 
 However, by order of the Government, they were 
 both dragged before a council of war at Stras- 
 bourg, which condemned Caron to death and Roger 
 to the galleys. Their appeal for reversal of judg- 
 ment remained in the portfolios of Minister Pay- 
 ronnet, and Caron was not even permitted to see 
 his wife and child. He was shot behind the bar- 
 racks of La Finckmatt in Strasbourg, and Roger 
 was for many years subjected to cruel suffering, 
 both moral and physical, in the galleys of Toulon. 
 
 The four under officers, the chief visible actors 
 in this atrocious drama, were named sub-lieuten- 
 ants, and moreover Gerard and Thiers were deco- 
 rated with the cross of the Legion of Honor. These 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 185 
 
 promotions were made at a review on the Champ 
 de Mars of Colmar, in the presence of her unsym- 
 pathetic citizens. 
 
 Kind people of Mulhouse provided for Caron's 
 son. Upon his return from the galleys, Roger, hos- 
 pitably received at Colmar, established there a rid- 
 ing school for civilians, which gained him an honor- 
 able living. After July, 1830, he was appointed 
 lieutenant of gendarmery in Algeria. 
 
l86 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 THIRTEENTH VIEW. 
 
 Revolution of 1830 and reign of Louis Philippe. — Revolu- 
 tion of 1848. — Patriotic celebration of the second centen- 
 nary of the return of Alsace to France. — Coup d'Etat and 
 the Second Empire. — Plebiscite. — War with Germany. 
 
 France was growing more and more weary of 
 the reactionary and clerical regime of the govern- 
 ment of the Bourbons, and there began to take form, 
 under the title of Liberal opinion, a general oppo- 
 sition, into which all the former adherents of the 
 Empire and all minds eager for progress and lib- 
 erty entered. 
 
 From all sides the voice of the people arose, re- 
 calling the rights acquired by the Revolution of 
 1789, the glories of the Empire, and the origin and 
 faults of the Restoration; and demanding absolute 
 respect for the constitutional charter. 
 
 Also at each new election of members of the 
 Chamber, the number of Liberal deputies became 
 more considerable. 
 
 In spite of all this, after a journey to Alsace made 
 by Charles X. in 1828, when he was led to receive 
 as a proof of popular devotion the official acclaima- 
 tions with which he was everywhere received, this 
 old King did not hesitate to give the command of a 
 French army to Bourmont, the great traitor of Wat- 
 erloo; to put the army of Paris under the orders 
 of Marmont, who was guilty of having left the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 1 87 
 
 allies open passage to the capital at the time of the 
 invasion; and to violate the charter by his famous 
 ordinances of July, 1830. 
 
 It was too much! The address to the King, 
 voted by two hundred and twenty-one Liberal depu- 
 ties of the Chamber, provoked the uprising of the 
 people of Paris, and after three days of righting, 
 the Bourbons were once more driven from France. 
 
 The Revolution of 1830 was acclaimed with en- 
 thusiasm by the very great majority of the French, 
 and was so ardently welcomed in Alsace that even 
 before the success of the Paris combatants was def- 
 initely known, the inhabitants of many Alsatian 
 cities had taken patriotic measures to sustain them. 
 There were immediately formed corps of volun- 
 teers, which were soon replaced by the organization 
 of the National Guard. 
 
 By September, Alsace had more than fifty thous- 
 and of the National Guard enrolled, armed and 
 equipped by the state, and uniformed at their own 
 expense. This large number of Alsatian militia in- 
 cluded squadrons or companies of cavalry in various 
 localities, and in all fortified places, such as Mul- 
 house and Colmar, batteries of artillery, and every- 
 where corps of sappers organized in battalions, 
 companies or sections, according to the importance 
 of their stations. 
 
 As the majority of these men had served as sol- 
 diers and most of their leaders were formerly army 
 officers, the Alsatian National Guard was soon very 
 well disciplined and capable of rendering military 
 service of real importance. 
 
 These good results were produced in part by the 
 patriotic exaltation aroused in the country by the 
 
1 88 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 menaces of the Czar Nicholas, which he was hin- 
 dered from putting into execution by the insurrec- 
 tion of the Poles, who once more poured out their 
 blood in combat with the enemies of France. 
 
 The seventh of August, 1830, the deputies ex- 
 ceeding somewhat the instructions put upon them 
 by their constituents, had proclaimed Louis Philippe 
 King of the French, not because he was a Bourbon, 
 but although he was a Bourbon. They believed 
 with the aged LaFayette, that his reign would be 
 the best of republics. 
 
 The coming to the throne of Louis Philippe was 
 hailed with satisfaction by a very large majority of 
 the nation, and it was by a series of enthusiastic 
 ovations that this popular sovereign was received, 
 when he journeyed through Alsace in 1831, with 
 his two sons, the Dukes of Orleans and Nemours. 
 
 Men saw in him the recognized friend of all the 
 chiefs of the great Liberal party; the old-time Re- 
 publican General of Valmy and Jemmapes ; the Citi- 
 zen King, who brought up his sons in the public 
 schools, and who might be seen in the streets in the 
 frock coat of the bourgeois, wearing a grey hat 
 and carrying an umbrella under his arm. He was 
 to them the representative of a government sub- 
 ject to a charter imposed, not granted; a govern- 
 ment of liberty and progress. And such he really 
 was during the first two years of his reign; but 
 then he began to turn away from the path of po- 
 litical amelioration, and to confine himself more and 
 more closely to the limits of the rights of royalty. 
 He responded less and less readily to the generous 
 impulses of the country, and for the purpose of 
 stemming their tide, he first employed the ministries 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 189 
 
 of Dupont de l'Eure, Laffitte and Casimir Perier, 
 and then, for the fifteen following years, cast into 
 the scales of his governmental balance, the minis- 
 ters Thiers, Mole, de Broglie and Guizot. 
 
 Together with Guizot, he resolved to put down 
 a desire widespread among the people — the desire 
 to give equal rights with the assessed electors, to a 
 class of men made eligible by the title of licentiate 
 of some one of the divers faculties, or that of re- 
 tired officer. 
 
 The barrier he thus tried to raise as an obstacle 
 to the movement of minds was too weak. It was 
 broken down in 1848, and the rupture carried away 
 the ruins of the throne, which fell under the shock 
 of a few hours of firing. 
 
 Louis Philippe had not even reached England, 
 whither he fled, before the Second Republic was 
 rising from earth in France. Its arrival did not 
 produce as general enthusiasm as that which had 
 broken forth in 1830, yet it came with the approval 
 of a national majority, and with at least the appar- 
 ent consent of all French citizens. 
 
 The Republic of 1848 ran the same course in Al- 
 sace as in the other parts of France. The National 
 Guards, successively disbanded under the govern- 
 ment of Louis Philippe, or fallen into neglect from 
 the evil effects of the law which regulated them, 
 were rapidly and successfully reorganized, but un- 
 fortunately there were also formed a regrettable 
 number of clubs and general societies, rather harm- 
 ful through their exaggerations than helpful to gen- 
 uine progress. 
 
 In spite of these discords between the true pa- 
 triots and a certain class of over-excited men, it was 
 
190 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 with great enthusiasm and a perfect spirit of accord, 
 that in 1848 all Alsace celebrated the second centen- 
 ary of its return to France. 
 
 Brilliant fetes, their splendor heightened by mili- 
 tary display, were given successively, with intervals 
 of two days, at Belfort, Mulhouse, Colmar, and 
 Strasbourg, and at each city there was a reunion of 
 a number of detachments of the National Guards of 
 the two departments, which manoeuvered with the 
 troops of the various garrisons on the parade 
 grounds, and afterward fraternized with them in 
 collations served publicly in the midst of an ex- 
 tremely patriotic people. 
 
 In spite of their essentially democratic nature, the 
 Alsatian people could not keep out of entanglements 
 with the Bonapartist intrigues, so skilfully managed 
 by the Duke de Morny, with the aid of a great num- 
 ber of agents and emissaries scattered throughout 
 France. The common people were made to believe 
 in a future of reforms, directed especially to their 
 social betterment. Men of prudence and modera- 
 tion, were at the same time presented with the im- 
 age of the spectre rouge, ready to destroy the fam- 
 ily, property, and the whole social order. To those 
 of still another type was promised private tranquil- 
 ity and peace in the State. The glory and power 
 of the first Empire were made to glitter before 
 everybody's eyes. Thus Louis Napolean was elected 
 President of the Republic. 
 
 The efforts made to arrive at this result had, how- 
 ever, obtained only indifferent success in Alsace, 
 when some months before the Coup d' Etat of the 
 second of December, 185 1, the Prince-President as 
 the men of the Bonapartist party affected to call 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I9I 
 
 him, traveled through the two departments of the 
 Rhine. 
 
 The journey became for him a series of unpleas- 
 ant surprises and disappointments. He was every- 
 where badly received by the inhabitants of towns 
 and cities where he stopped, hearing only cries of 
 "Vive la Republique!" So that from Besancon to 
 Strasbourg, he always anticipated the hour set for 
 his departure, and consequently that of his arrival 
 in the next town. 
 
 Only a little while afterward, fell the Coup 
 d' Etat by which Louis Napolean laid a heavy hand 
 on the Republic that had recalled him from exile 
 and raised him to the rank of its representatives, 
 who in turn had confied to him the office of chief 
 magistrate, — the Republic to which as deputy and 
 President he had sworn fidelity and devotion! 
 
 On the second of December, 185 1, the principal 
 republican deputies were arrested, the others were 
 driven out, and the few gatherings that offered a 
 feeble resistance in Paris, were scattered with can- 
 non balls. 
 
 In the Departments, all such attempted assemblies 
 were violently crushed, and everywhere citizens 
 known to hold republican views were threatened 
 and spied upon. Many were detained in depart- 
 ments distant from those in which they lived, and 
 from Paris as well as from the provinces, consider- 
 able numbers were deported to Africa. 
 
 Led astray by the Legend of the First Empire, 
 deceived by false and illusory promises, and in- 
 fluenced by powerful means of intimidation, the 
 electors amnestied by a plebiscite the violent usurpa- 
 tion of the second of December. 
 
192 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 The twenty years which followed under the Im- 
 perial Regime which was to have been one of peace, 
 were disturbed by a series of wars — in China, the 
 Crimea, Italy, Mexico, and finally, alas ! — in France ! 
 
 The authoritative and personal power of the Im- 
 perial Government had lost prestige among the en- 
 lightened classes of the nation, and with the aim to 
 prevent its own decadence, it seized upon a pretext 
 for asking of the country and obtaining from it a 
 new plebiscite, which was put forth the eighth of 
 May, 1870. 
 
 But this electoral victory was not enough to en- 
 able the Emperor to wipe out of his history the de- 
 plorable pages of the Mexican war, and he needed 
 another and farther resounding victory to assure 
 the fate of his dynasty. "Its power, would assuredly 
 have been consolidated, had the country been given 
 the glory of vanquishing Prussia, which since 
 Sadowa had dominated in Germany, and aspired 
 to the re-establishment of the great German Em- 
 pire. 
 
 Although it was evident that in case of war with 
 France the various German states would at once rally 
 around Prussia, and in spite of our denuded arsen- 
 als and the condition of our army, exhausted and 
 impoverished as it was by the Mexican expedition, 
 the Imperial Government resolved to try the for- 
 tunes of the fatherland in a war which the Empress 
 said was her war, because in it she saw at once the 
 assurance of her son's future, and the humiliation 
 of a Protestant nation that was on the verge of be- 
 coming predominant in Europe. 
 
 Emboldened and haughty after the success of her 
 arms in Denmark and Austria, and confident in the 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I93 
 
 formidable armament she had for a long time been 
 preparing, Prussia, on her side, desired a war with 
 France. 
 
 With this reciprocal disposition in the French and 
 Prussian Governments, a diplomatic difficulty arose 
 between them, upon the subject of a Hohenzollern 
 prince who was to mount the Spanish throne. 
 Napolean III. demanded that he renounce it, and 
 that the King of Prussia give surety of his doing so. 
 William I. agreed to the renunciation, but refused 
 to assure it. This was enough, and the declaration 
 of war was read in the French Chamber of Dep- 
 uties, on the twentieth of July, 1870. 
 
194 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 FOURTEENTH VIEW. 
 
 Conditions in Alsace before the war of 1870. — Events 
 which took place there during the war. — The cession of 
 Alsace-Lorraine and its effects. — Patriotism of the inhab- 
 itants. 
 
 During the passage of the nineteenth century, Al- 
 sace rose to a remarkable degree of prosperity and 
 progress of every nature. From three hundred 
 thousand souls which she numbered at the time of 
 her return to France in 1648, in 1870 her popula- 
 tion had risen to the number of a million active and 
 intelligent citizens, worthy to enjoy the gifts ac- 
 corded by Nature to this beautiful, rich and fruit- 
 ful country. 
 
 Measured in a straight line from north to south 
 between its two extreme points, the country has a 
 length of nearly one hundred and twenty-five miles ; 
 and measured from east to west in the same way, 
 its mean breadth is over thirty miles. It has an area 
 of about three thousand miles, nearly seventeen 
 hundred in cultivated lands and meadows, a thou- 
 sand in forests, over a hundred in vineyards, and 
 nearly two hundred in uncultivated land, moun- 
 tains, lakes and ponds. 
 
 It is furrowed with highways, canals and various 
 other lines of communication, of which the most 
 important are the railroads from Belfort and Basel 
 to Mulhouse, Colmar, Strasbourg, and Saverne, and 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I95 
 
 the canal leading from the Rhone into the Rhine, 
 and ending at Strasbourg. 
 
 The vast plain, stretched out like a well-leveled 
 garden between the Rhine and the Vosges, and 
 from the Swiss frontier to that of the Palatinate, 
 with its great and beautiful forests, fertile meadows, 
 and numerous water-courses, is rich in all the culti- 
 vated products fostered by the favorable climate of 
 France, with the exception of the oranges and olives 
 of the Midi. Numerous cities and villages are dis- 
 tributed throughout the region, seldom more than 
 two and a half or three miles apart. 
 
 Over the whole extent of the eastern slope of the 
 chain of the Vosges, its foothills are covered with 
 luxuriant vineyards, its flanks wooded with oak and 
 chestnut trees, and its summits heavy with dark and 
 imposing groves of pine, with the ruins of numerous 
 feudal castles beetling above them, and a few peaks 
 towering still higher — vast Alpine pasture-lands, 
 the highest of which attain an altitude of forty-six 
 hundred feet. 
 
 In this beautiful mountain chain are found at 
 once great fertile valleys, charming dales, lakes, 
 torrents and cascades, huge rocks, and precipices 
 with grantie walls three hundred feet high; so that 
 one may see but short distances apart scenes the 
 most smiling and aspects the wildest — the greatest 
 variations of a resourceful Nature, sometimes 
 tender and kindly, sometimes awe-inspiring, harsh, 
 threatening, and seeming as though still agitated by 
 the cataclysms she suffered in pre-historic times. 
 
 The vigorous Alsatian race was able to add to the 
 natural gifts of its beautiful and fruitful country, 
 all the advantages of civilization. The system of 
 
I96 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 public instruction was highly developed in both the 
 departments of the Rhine. The Academie of Stras- 
 bourg had acquired a just renown from the high 
 class of instruction given under its various faculties, 
 and the city possessed besides a military School of 
 Medicine, and a lycee. Colmar had a lycee and Mul- 
 house a college and a very remarkable industrial 
 school. There were a number of other colleges 
 in Alsace, at Haguenau, Wissembourg, Saverne, 
 Obernai, Schlestadt, Rouffach, Thann, Altkirk, and 
 Belfort. 
 
 A large number of the young graduates of these 
 institutions went on with higher studies in science, 
 belles-letters, medicine and law, or took honorable 
 places in the polytechnical and normal schools and 
 the schools of forestry, at Saint-Cyr, and the school 
 des Arts et Metiers at Chalons. Elementary in- 
 struction was so general that the smallest villages 
 had at least one school, and during the later years 
 all the conscripts knew how to read and write. 
 
 Just as the two Alsatian departments stood in 
 the first rank where popular education was con- 
 cerned, that of Bas-Rhin stood second and that of 
 Haut-Rhin third in order among the departments 
 in which agriculture was carried to the highest per- 
 fection. In each of the two capitals there was a de- 
 partmental Agricultural society, whose influence 
 spread to the smaller societies established in the 
 different arrondissements, and to numerous can- 
 tonal and communal societies. One was moved to ad- 
 miration by the tireless energy of the vine-growers 
 and agriculturists of the country, who gathered 
 within the space of a few days the abundant pro- 
 ducts of their immense vineyards, or harvested, with 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 197 
 
 the same ardor in their work, the crops which cov- 
 ered their vast fields or the hay from their countless 
 grassy plains. 
 
 In the fields, in the meadows, in the vineyards, 
 work was vigorously carried on the year round, but 
 with especial energy at harvest time, and no one 
 knew that he was tired or thought of rest till his 
 task was done. 
 
 The division of the land among a multiplicity of 
 proprietors, contributed greatly to these results. 
 Even the small number of great landed proprietors 
 personally administered their estates, and few lands 
 were farmed out. The Alsatian land, like its inhab- 
 itants, was essentially democratic. 
 
 The workingmen of the cities made the establish- 
 ments in which they were employed prosperous by 
 their skill and activity, and thus played a large part 
 in the development of the numerous extensive 
 manufactories which so greatly augmented the 
 country's wealth. 
 
 In acknowledgment of the skill and faithfulness 
 of their workmen, the Alsatian manufacturers have 
 always shown a friendly solicitude for them by 
 creating pension and insurance funds, building 
 schools for their children, and establishing work- 
 ingmens' towns, of which the one at Mulhouse was 
 the first in France, and has remained the most near- 
 ly perfect model for all that have aimed to imitate it, 
 and the most beautiful and wisest of philanthropic 
 works, giving to toilers the means of easily better- 
 ing their condition and assuring their future while 
 preserving entire independence. 
 
 It must also be said to the honor of the pro- 
 prietors of the great Alsatian industries, that in 
 
I98 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 times of dullness or crisis they have made very con- 
 siderable sacrifices in order to keep their workmen 
 busy the greatest number of hours possible, and thus 
 assure them sufficient income for their needs. It 
 should also be added that in this country, so large- 
 ly industrial, where the great manufactories count 
 their workers by the thousands, there have never 
 been any strikes, and not more than two or three 
 instances of labor agitations, and those quite in- 
 offensive, restricted to a few individuals and a few 
 hours, with no resemblance to that hideous evil 
 which ruins workingmen and employers alike, and 
 gravely threatens the prosperity of the nation itself. 
 
 As in all countries where great industries are 
 highly developed and there is a considerable density 
 of population, trade was very flourishing in Alsace. 
 
 The Alsatian people were always most sympa- 
 thetically inclined toward everything that concerned 
 the army, and the officers and soldiers stationed in 
 the garrison towns of the country, left them with 
 regret, and never forgot the hospitable and friend- 
 ly entertainment they had received. From men's 
 earliest remembrance, young Alsatians had con-, 
 tinually shown a pronounced inclination for mili- 
 tary life. The days of conscription were always 
 festival days, and a large number of those who es- 
 caped being drafted, voluntarily entered the service. 
 There were also so many ready to re-engage, that 
 they furnished a considerable contingent of the 
 corps of under-officers. 
 
 As to superior officers, Alsatians were numerous 
 throughout the army, and from their ranks have 
 come a great number of men famous for the ser- 
 vices they rendered the country, the most celebrated 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. I99 
 
 of whom have left to posterity the glorious names 
 of Kellermann, Kleber, Rapp, Lefebvre, Pelissier 
 and Braut. 
 
 Under the influence of the military spirit abroad 
 in Alsace, a large number of gymnasiums and 
 shooting-galleries were established throughout the 
 country. 
 
 In the cities and towns of the second and third 
 rank, the bourgeoise, made up almost entirely of 
 land-holders and merchants, were characterized by 
 a quiet, regular and domestic life. In the more im- 
 portant places, this bourgeoisie, more numerous, 
 more active, richer, and having among its number 
 more artisans, merchants, landed proprietors and 
 people of independent fortune, was still further 
 augmented by various classes of state functionaries 
 and communal and departmental bureaucrats. This 
 aggregation of men whose professions demand a 
 superior degree of education, produced a class char- 
 acterized by a taste for social assemblies, the theatre, 
 music, and scientific, art, and literary societies, 
 which did not, however, encroach upon the healthy 
 and inspiring life of the family. Very few Al- 
 satian towns were without musicial societies, either 
 choral or orchestral, and in the more important 
 towns there were always several of them. 
 
 At Strasbourg, the civilizing spirit found a 
 powerful stimulant in the post-graduate instruction 
 given under the various faculties of its famous 
 Academie; in the treasures of its fine library and its 
 museums of art and natural history; and in the re- 
 sources of its admirable theatre. 
 
 At Mulhouse the elements of social progress were 
 to be found especially in the good influence of its 
 
200 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 Industrial Society, whose learned chemists, phys- 
 icists, mechanicians and naturalists produced so 
 many works of importance, that after the Institute 
 it became the chief scientific society of France. 
 
 Colmar, less populous than the two large cities 
 just mentioned, perhaps accepted the more readily 
 and effectively among its inhabitants generally the 
 favorable intellectual effects of the presence of its 
 Court of Appeals and its two courts of justice, with, 
 their magistrates, lawyers and clerks and the large 
 number of functionaries connected with the various 
 departmental administrations concentrated in this 
 capital city of Haut-Rhin. It possessed besides an 
 immense and very important library, as well as a 
 splendid museum of art, natural history and eth- 
 nography. As at Strasbourg and Mulhouse, science, 
 art and letters were here assiduously cultivated. 
 
 Alsace also set an example of great tolerance in 
 religious matters. The Catholics made up about 
 three-fifths of the population, and lived in perfect 
 peace with the Protestants, who with a very small 
 number of Jews, made up the other two-fifths. The 
 free-thinkers were scattered among the faithful fol- 
 lowers of these three cults, whose harmony there 
 was never any attempt to disturb, save in a few rare 
 cases, by individuals who were as unsupported as 
 they were uninfluential, and who were always un- 
 successful. A fact taken at random may serve to 
 illustrate this harmony. In the rich commune of 
 Horburg, near Colmar, a little old church served 
 alternately, according to need, for the services of 
 Protestants or Catholics. 
 
 The preceding sketch gives but a faint conception 
 of what Alsace was at the moment when the fatal 
 war of 1870 broke out. 
 

 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 201 
 
 During the course of July, the Alsatian Gardes 
 Mobiles were called out, and occupied the fortified 
 towns of the country, while the numerous military 
 convoys transported in the direction of the Pala- 
 tinate frontier a part of the two hundred fifty thou- 
 sand men which France was reduced to opposing to 
 a million Germans. 
 
 The fourth of August, a corps of eight thousand 
 French stationed near Wissembourg, under com- 
 mand of General Abel Douai, was surprised and at- 
 tacked by eighty thousand Prussians and Bavarians, 
 and after a heroic fight, was forced to retire to 
 Haguenau. Then came the defeats of Mac-Mahon 
 and General Frossard, which produced a profound 
 depression in Alsace, where there were no longer 
 any regular troops, and where the fortified towns 
 themselves wree guarded only by the remnants of 
 different regiments, by some of the Gardes Mobiles 
 who had been mustered in haste, and were badly 
 armed, badly equipped, and poorly clothed, and by 
 the citizens that a decree of the tenth of August had 
 just called into the ranks of the Stationary National 
 Guard. 
 
 After the defeat of Marshal Mac-Mahon, the 
 Germans spread out over the department of Bas- 
 Rhin, and invested Strasbourg. 
 
 While this siege was going on, Napolean III. 
 capitulated at Sedan, delivered the French army in- 
 to the hands of the enemy to whom he had sur- 
 rendered, and on the fourth of September, the Third 
 Republic was proclaimed at Paris. 
 
 It was not until the 12th of September that the 
 Germans entered Haut-Rhin where from the be- 
 ginning of the month the Alsatians had been organ- 
 
202 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 izing on paper the National Guard, for which they 
 had been able to furnish only a few percussion guns, 
 but no equipment or rations. Nevertheless, when 
 on the 13th of September at eight o'clock in the 
 morning six thousand Badenese troops approached 
 Colmar, with five pieces of artillery, the volunteer 
 company of Saint Denis, which had been stationed 
 there for three days, faced the enemy, with the sup- 
 port of about one hundred and fifty of the National 
 Guard, whose patriotism drew them individually in- 
 to this honorable but futile attempt to defend an 
 unprotected city. These brave fellows drove the 
 enemy's advance guard back beyond Horbourg, 
 but were then forced to beat a retreat, after killing 
 a number of the enemy, and losing one of the volun- 
 teers and a bourgeois citizen of Colmar. 
 
 To retaliate for this slight resistance, the Baden- 
 ese attempted to blow up the gas works which were 
 situated in the neighborhood of the spot where it 
 happened. With this intent, they stormed the es- 
 tablishment for half an hour, striking it with thirty- 
 seven shells, and causing great damage. After this 
 fine exploit, they entered the capital of Haut-Rhin, 
 in closed ranks, where they killed three inoffensive 
 men in the streets. 
 
 They retired from Colmar the fifteenth of Sep- 
 tember, and then there were seen passing through 
 that city troops of francs-tireurs, sometimes Prus- 
 sian uhlans, and once a body of fifteen hundred of 
 the gardes mobile, on the way from Lyons to 
 Brisach. 
 
 Strasbourg, overwhelmed by the powerful Ger- 
 man artillery, was forced to surrender, the 
 twenty-eighth of September, immediately after- 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 203 
 
 ward Schlestadt and Brisach were invested, and 
 Mulhouse was occupied by over ten thousand of 
 the enemy's troops. 
 
 During the first half of October the whole coun- 
 try was submitted to incessant requisitions and 
 abuses of all sorts, and to frequent arrests of its 
 citizens. A large number of the younger men es- 
 caping through the enemy's lines and their outposts 
 — which were everywhere, — crossed the Vosges and 
 rejoined various corps of the French army. 
 
 After a valiant defense, Schlestadt was forced to 
 surrender, on the twenty-fourth of October, and 
 Brisach on the tenth of November. The Alsatian 
 gardes mobiles were left at the mercy of the brutal 
 German troops, who led them prisoners into their 
 own country, where they suffered the greatest pri- 
 vations. Belfort alone was able to continue her 
 glorious defense! 
 
 It was with ever increasing despair that the Al- 
 satian people learned successively of the treason of 
 Bazaine and the surrender of Metz, the defeat of 
 the armies of Bourbaki, Chanzy and Faidherbe, the 
 capitulation of Paris and the frightful civil warfare 
 that followed. 
 
 But it remained for them to receive a last blow 
 more cruel still, which at the same time fell upon 
 their brothers of Lorraine — their deliverance into 
 the hands of Germany as a ransom for France! 
 
 As a token of their gratitude toward all those 
 who had taken part in the national defense, the Al- 
 satians chose to look upon it as being personified 
 in the man who had been its most active and most 
 effective motive power; when therefore they were 
 called upon to elect their deputies to the Assembly 
 
204 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 of Bordeaux, they placed Gambetta at the head of 
 their lists, in both departments of the Rhine. 
 
 Before the ratification of the treaty of peace with 
 the German Empire, by the Assembly of Bordeaux, 
 the deputies from Alsace-Lorraine addressed a pro- 
 test to it, containing the following passage: "By 
 these presents we proclaim forever inviolable the 
 right of the citizens of Alsace and Lorraine to re- 
 main members of the French nation, and we swear 
 on our own part, and on that of our constituents, 
 their children, and their descendants, to continue 
 to lay claim to it forever and by every means, in 
 the face of all usurpers. 
 
 "We are Frenchmen and wish to remain French- 
 men. 
 
 "We deny to everybody and everything on earth, 
 assembly or plebiscite, the right to sell us, in totality 
 or in part, be it even under the pretext of sparing 
 the Nation further suffering." 
 
 And yet, at its session of the second of March, 
 the Assembly of Bordeaux adopted by a vote of 
 five hundred and forty-six against one hundred 
 seven, the peace preliminaries accepted at Versailles 
 on the twenty-sixth of February, 1871, by virtue 
 of which France ceded to Germany a fifth part of 
 Lorraine, including Metz and Thionville, and all 
 of Alsace except Belfort. 
 
 After this decision of the Assembly, the deputies 
 from the territory ceded made a final protest, whose 
 most important terms were these: 
 
 "Given up to foreign rule, in defiance of all jus- 
 tice, and by an execrable abuse of power, we have 
 a last duty to fulfill. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 205 
 
 "We once more declare null and void a compact 
 which disposes of us without our consent. 
 
 "The demand for the return of our rights will 
 forever remain open to all and several, in the form 
 and in the measure that our conscience shall dictate. 
 
 "At the moment of leaving this hall of assembly, 
 where it is no longer in keeping with our dignity 
 for us to sit, and in spite of the bitterness ot our 
 suffering, the thought we find supreme in our 
 hearts is a thought of gratitude for those who dur- 
 ing six months have not ceased to defend us, and 
 of unalterable attachment to our native land, from 
 which we have been violently torn away.''' 
 
 The fearless and patriotic language of their rep- 
 resentatives was a faithful echo of the sentiments 
 of the people of Alsace-Lorraine. They could not 
 doubt that should they accept the German domina- 
 tion with a good grace, their rich country would 
 make one of the most precious jewels of the Ger- 
 man Empire, and that Empire would accord them 
 all its favors; but they had only scorn and hatred 
 for everything that could strike a blow at their fi- 
 delity to France. 
 
 In order not to bow under the foreign yoke, two 
 hundred thousand of the inhabitants of Alsace-Lor- 
 raine expatiated themselves, and the thirteen hundred 
 thousand others, whom necessity or duties from 
 which it would have been culpable to escape held 
 in their places, have firmly maintained the senti- 
 ments they always had for the fatherland from 
 which they were separated by violence. 
 
 And for the nineteen years since their fatal an- 
 nexation to Germany, what have they not suffered? 
 Always under suspicion and harassed by the dis- 
 
206 ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 
 
 trustful and hostile authorities, how many of them 
 are there who have not, — and even upon the flims- 
 iest of excuses, — been arrested, imprisoned, judged, 
 condemned, exiled? 
 
 And is not their whole country submitted to a 
 kind of barbarous quarantine? They cannot leave 
 it except under the surveillance of the police, and 
 no one can enter it without meeting obstacles which 
 frequently stand in the way of the most sacred 
 family relations and duties. 
 
 The use of the French language is proscribed, 
 not only in the schools and in all public enactments, 
 but even in the most ordinary commercial transac- 
 tions. 
 
 The public revenues are used largely for con- 
 structing fortifications, and it is hoped that 
 the depreciation of property will make possible its 
 acquisition at a price so low that colonies of needy 
 immigrants may be established beside the too great 
 number of those whose feet already sully the ground 
 of four of the French departments. 
 
 Yet, in spite of all these activities of the German 
 Imperial Government, Alsace-Lorraine, impover- 
 ished, oppressed, exploited for the profit of others, 
 remains devoted to France, holds aloof from all 
 private relations with her invaders, and keeps ever 
 open the bleeding wound that binds her to the flanks 
 of Germany. 
 
 This last named country is responsible for all the 
 calamities Europe has to suffer by reason of the 
 unrest that disturbs her international affairs, and 
 the enormous expenditures demanded by the formid- 
 able armament which each of the nations believes 
 necessary to its security. 
 
ALSACE THROUGHOUT THE AGES. 207 
 
 Sufficiently powerful, meanwhile, after her vic- 
 tories over Denmark, Austria and France, Germany 
 could not content herself with her glories, the rich 
 indemnities she had wrung from her vanquished 
 enemies, and the local marauding of her soldiery; 
 she must besides make of the Vosges a German 
 frontier that could be only indefinite and artificial, 
 in place of the right bank of the Rhine, that great, 
 wide river, which, after serving for a series of cen- 
 turies as a boundary line between Celts and Teutons, 
 then between their sons, the Gauls and Alemanni, 
 and then between Franks and Germani, is the only 
 natural and invariable barrier which can separate 
 to their mutual advantage the two nations of France 
 and Germany. 
 
 For the sake of the world's peace and progress, 
 this great trench which Nature has cut between na- 
 tions of different origin and separate races, should 
 be restored to its function. 
 

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