social, artistic and intellectual, readers must go to M. Hallays' volume.
In every development this writer shows that a special stamp may be found.
Neither Teutonic nor Gallic, art and handicrafts reveal indigenous
growth, and the same feature may be studied in town and village, in
palace, cathedral and cottage.

We must remember that we are here dealing with a region of very ancient
civilization. Taste has been slowly developed, artistic culture is of no
mushroom growth. Alsace formed the highroad between Italy and Flanders.
In M. Hallays' words, already during the Renaissance, aesthetic Alsace
blended the lessons of north and south, her genius was a product of good
sense, experience and a feeling of proportion. And he points out how in
the eighteenth century French taste influenced Alsatian faience, woven
stuffs, ironwork, sculpture, wood-carving and furniture, even peasant
interiors being thereby modified. "Alsace," he writes, "holds us
spell-bound by the originality of culture and temperament found among her
inhabitants. It has generally been taken for granted that native genius
is here a mere blend of French and German character, that Alsatian
sentiment appertains to the latter stock, intellectual development to the
former, that the inhabitants think in French and imagine in German. There
is a certain leaven of truth in these assumptions, but when we hold
continued intercourse with all classes, listen to their speech,
familiarize ourselves with their modes of life and mental outlook, we
arrive again and again at one conclusion: we say to ourselves, here is an
element which is neither Teutonic nor Gallic. I cannot undertake to
particularize, I only note in my pages those instances that occur by the
way. And the conviction that we are here penetrating a little world
hitherto unknown to us, such novelty being revealed in every stroll and
chat, lends extraordinary interest to our peregrination."