Page:Masterpieces of German literature volume 10.djvu/228

and considerate. To a great extent this may have been due to the fact that all those qualities which distinguish the Germans from the French are found to such a high degree in Alsace-Lorraine, that the inhabitants of this country formed—I may say it without fear of seeming presumption—an aristocracy in France as regards proficiency and exactness. They were better qualified for service, and more reliable in office. The substitutes in the army, the gendarmes, and the civil officers were from Alsace-Lorraine in numbers entirely out of proportion to the population of these provinces. There were one and one half million Germans who knew how to make use of these virtues among a people who have other virtues but who are lacking in these particular ones. Thanks to their excellence they enjoyed a favored position, which made them unmindful of many legal iniquities. It is, moreover, characteristic of the Germans that every tribe lays claim to some kind of superiority, especially over its immediate neighbors. As long as the people of Alsace and Lorraine were French, Paris with its splendor and the grandeur of a united France stood behind them; they could meet their fellow Germans with the consciousness that Paris was theirs, and thus find a reason for their sense of exclusive superiority. I do not wish to discuss further the reasons why everyone attaches himself more readily to a big political system which gives scope to his abilities, than to a divided, albeit related, nation, such as existed formerly on this side of the Rhine, in so far as the Alsatians were concerned. The fact is that such disinclination existed, and that it is our duty to overcome it by patience. We have, it seems to me, many means at our disposal. We Germans are accustomed to govern more benevolently, sometimes more awkwardly—but in the long run really more benevolently and humanely, than the French statesmen. This is a merit of the German character which will soon appeal to the Alsatian heart and become manifest. We are, moreover, able to grant the inhabitants a far