charms. You must here live with French people, whether you will or no.
Insular reserve cannot resist the prevailing friendliness and
good-fellowship. How long such a state of things will exist, who can say?
Fortunately for the lover of nature, most of the places I have mentioned
are too unobtrusive ever to become popular. "Nothing to see here, and
nothing to do," would surely be the verdict of most globe-trotters even
on sweet Gerardmer itself!



II

THE CHARM OF ALSACE

The notion of here reprinting my notes of Alsatian travel was suggested
by a recent French work--_A travers l'Alsace en flanant_, from the
pen of M. Andre Hallays. This delightful writer had already published
several volumes dealing with various French provinces, more especially
from an archaeological point of view. In his latest and not least
fascinating _flanerie_ he gives the experiences of several holiday
tours in Germanized France.

My own sojourns, made at intervals among French friends, _annexes_
both of Alsace and Lorraine, were chiefly undertaken in order to realize
the condition of the German Emperor's French subjects. But I naturally
visited many picturesque sites and historic monuments in both, the
forfeited territories being especially rich. Whilst volume after volume
of late years have appeared devoted to French travel, holiday tourists
innumerable jotting their brief experiences of well-known regions,
strangely enough no English writer has followed my own example. No work