Dan felt a strange weakness running through his veins.
"But is there no way to put an end to such things?" he asked.
Chevrial rolled himself another cigarette.
"Poland has no friends," he answered. "She has been forgotten. The Poles themselves have come to be regarded as fools, as charlatans, as irresponsible children. France was supposed to be the friend of Poland; Napoleon promised to reconstitute her, and the Poles fought by thousands in his armies and won many victories for him. Then came the campaign of Russia and ended all that. To-day, Poland is remembered in France only by a proverb, 'Saoul comme un Polonais,' 'Drunk as a Pole.' It is so we think of them, when we think of them at all, which is not often. This disdain, this forgetfulness, has been carefully fostered by Germany and Russia. No one thinks it worth while to interfere. Besides, Poland's lot is that of every conquered country. In Alsace-Lorraine it is just the same."
"Oh, surely not!" Dan protested. "Germany, at least, has no Siberia!"
"No, she has no Siberia," Chevrial agreed, "but neither has she a sense of humour, and that is worse! The very worst trait in a conqueror, M. Webster, believe me, is an absence of the sense of humour! And Germany has the strongest prisons in the world. Her system of espial is even more minute and irritating than that of Russia. As in Poland, the people of Alsace and Lorraine may not speak their native tongue nor study the history of their fatherland. Nothing escapes suspicion. It is reported that at a certain café the accounts are kept in French; the café is thereupon visited, the books confiscated, and a fine imposed. A certain gentleman goes to Nancy on the fourteenth of July, which happens to be the date of the French national fête; he is reported as suspect and his premises are visited and searched. The police, passing the house of a notary one evening, hear some one singing the Marseillaise; they demand admittance and arrest the notary, although it was a phonograph which had been singing the song. This is adjudged a very serious case."
"Do you mean to tell me," Dan demanded, "that such things actually occur?"
The ghost of a smile flitted across Chevrial's lips.
"Not those precise cases, perhaps," he said; "but cases very like them—cases not a whit less ridiculous. And can you wonder that Germany finds Alsace and Lorraine restless? Do you wonder that our hearts ache for our compatriots? Do you wonder that we dream of the day when we may remove those mourning wreaths from the statue of Strasbourg in the Place de la Concord?"
He fell silent a moment, then shrugged his shoulders resignedly.