former doctrine; he will be struck by the comfort which he sees
around him, and for a while will dispense with wealth, luxury,
scholarships, and fashion. Whether the inhabitants of these hills
and valleys will advance to farther progress now that they are again
to become German, is another question, which the writer will not
attempt to answer here.

Granpere in itself is a very pleasing village. Though the amount of
population and number of houses do not suffice to make it more than
a village, it covers so large a space of ground as almost to give it
a claim to town honours. It is perhaps a full mile in length; and
though it has but one street, there are buildings standing here and
there, back from the line, which make it seem to stretch beyond the
narrow confines of a single thoroughfare. In most French villages
some of the houses are high and spacious, but here they seem almost
all to be so. And many of them have been constructed after that
independent fashion which always gives to a house in a street a
character and importance of its own. They do not stand in a simple
line, each supported by the strength of its neighbour, but occupy
their own ground, facing this way or that as each may please,
presenting here a corner to the main street, and there an end.
There are little gardens, and big stables, and commodious barns; and
periodical paint with annual whitewash is not wanting. The
unstinted slates shine copiously under the sun, and over almost
every other door there is a large lettered board which indicates
that the resident within is a dealer in the linen which is produced
throughout the country. All these things together give to Granpere
an air of prosperity and comfort which is not at all checked by the
fact that there is in the place no mansion which we Englishmen would
call the gentleman's house, nothing approaching to the ascendancy of