physiognomies, we could hardly suppose ourselves outside the French
border. The shops are French. French is the language of the better
classes, and French and Jews make up the bulk of the population. The Jews
from time immemorial have swarmed in Alsace, where, I am sorry to say,
they seemed to be little liked.

This thoroughly French appearance of Mulhouse, to be accounted for,
moreover, by an intensely patriotic clinging to the mother country,
naturally occasions great vexation to the German authorities. It is,
perhaps, hardly to be wondered at that undignified provocations and
reprisals should be the consequence. Thus the law forbids the putting up
of French signboards or names over shop doors in any but the German
language. This is evaded by withholding all else except the surname of
the individual, which is of course the same in both languages.

One instance more I give of the small annoyances to which the French
residents of Mulhouse are subject, a trifling one, yet sufficient to
irritate. Eight months after the annexation, orders were sent round to
the pastors and clergy generally to offer up prayers for the Emperor
William every Sunday. The order was obeyed, for refusal would have been
assuredly followed by dismissal, but the prayer is ungraciously
performed. The French pastors invoke the blessing of Heaven on
"_l'Empereur qui nous gouverne_". The pastors who perform the
service in German, pray not for "our Emperor," as is the apparently loyal
fashion in the Fatherland, but for "the Emperor." These things are
trifling grievances, but, on the other hand, the Prussians have theirs
also. Not even the officials of highest rank are received into any kind
of society whatever. Mulhouse possesses a charming zoological garden,
free to subscribers only, who have to be balloted for. Twenty years after
the annexation not a single Prussian has ever been able to obtain access