signs of flinching on the part of their victims, the
imperial authorities continued the policy of torture,
moral if not physical. Owing to the operation of
the passport régime the Alsatians lived, as it were,
in a demi-vacuum, almost suffocated. Cut off from
their friends in France, permitted to receive only
those French newspapers which consented to forego
all reference to them, their letters opened by an
active "Cabinet noir" whose efficiency would have
pleased even Metternich in the palmiest days of
the European reaction, they saw one tie after another
snapped that connected them with France, saw all
fruitful and helpful communication with their true
mother-country and with their relatives in France
brought to an end.

As the years went by a new generation grew up
which thus lost touch, so vital and so necessary,
with France. Meanwhile the older generation which
had known what it was to love France and to fight
for her, which had kept the faith during all these
years, was rapidly disappearing, gathered to its
fathers in the final resting place. The new genera-
tion had had no other experience than that of Ger-
man subjects. All its members had passed through
the German schools, its young men had known
service in the German army. Could they escape

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