The monarchy of July marks a period of uninterrupted prosperity for Alsace. The return of the tri-colour was hailed with joy. The democratic idea grew and was represented chiefly by the Courrier du Bas-Rhin which influenced public opinion. After 1815, the reactionary persecutions abated against the Germans who were liberal minded and they received an hospitable welcome to Alsace. With their innate absence of tact, many of them tried to convince their hosts that Alsace was still a German province, and in this way they forfeited all sympathy.

The Alsatians desire there should be no misunderstanding as to the nature of the sympathy shown to unjustly persecuted refugees, and the international courtesy practised by them even towards the Germans. In 1842, when the German delegates to the Scientific Congress of France were received at Strasbourg, the mouthpiece of the Alsatians spoke of the sympathies of his countrymen for Germany; but to avoid any mistake he added: "But if we gaze toward her, it is not with the eyes of a child torn from the paternal home, but rather, if you will permit the comparison, with the affectionate look with which the young wife greets once more her mother's house, happy under the new roof which shelters her, and with the name of her husband which she bears with pride."

Alsace has never wavered from this fidelity to France. In 1848 the second Republic was accepted with satisfaction. Under Louis Philippe the country had enjoyed great material prosperity, but the middle classes were restless because the government took no measures to reform the electorate in the democratic sense. At this time great fêtes were held to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the union of Alsace and France. The mayor of Strasbourg said on this occasion: "It is without doubt no longer necessary to make a solemn and public profession of undying devotion to France. She does not doubt us, she has faith in Alsace; but if Germany still lulls herself with futile illusions, if she still finds in the persistence of the German language a sign of irresistible sympathy and attraction toward her, she is mistaken. Alsace is just as much French as Brittany, Flanders, and the country of the Basques, and she will so remain."

The affection of France kept pace always with the profession of democratic and republican ideals. When the prince-president came to Strasbourg in 1850, he was received in all the villages of Alsace with shouts of Vive la République! The municipal council of Strasbourg had refused to give any funds for his reception. At Strasbourg and at Mulhouse the National Guard was dismissed by the government. The Colonel of the Strasbourg Legion said in his farewell address: "It is true that at times you express with great vigour republican sentiments, but this is with you an original sin, and I fear me that the remedy applied will not be effectual in its correction."

During the Second Empire, Alsace was a hotbed of republican resistance, particularly in the Upper Rhine. However, at this time, the country again enjoyed a great prosperity. The military career continued to attract the Alsatians. The great advantages assured to the reinlisted soldiers induced many of them to enter the army as volunteers. The wars in Algeria under Louis Philippe had already shown, among the combatants, a great number of Alsatians. The intellectual culture of the provinces turned towards France and made great progress. Erckmann and Chatrian expressed marvellously well the aspirations and democratic ideals of the people in magnifying the rôles of the Alsatians and the Lorrainers in the heroic period of the Revolution and the First Empire.

The peoples of Alsace and Lorraine were, like those of the rest of France, divided into political parties, and one often saw disagreements, generally legal, with the ideas of the respective governments. But no one ever evinced the slightest regret at no longer belonging to the Holy Empire, or the least desire to re-enter the bosom of Germany. When the War of 1870 broke out, Alsace and Lorraine were very French, and during that war the people of both provinces bravely and patriotically did their duty to France. The people were thus badly prepared for a change of nationality, and far from looking on their new Teuton compatriots as brothers, they cordially detested the Germans who during the war had conducted themselves to the limit of savagery. The forced community of life with the Germans soon showed an irreconcilable opposition between the native and the immigrant population.

Alsace-Lorraine could live whole centuries with the Germans without becoming germanized, whereas two centuries of life in common with France, freely consented to, had proved sufficient to make them Frenchmen. This spontaneous fusion could never have been possible if Alsace-Lorraine and France had not always had the same ideals of civilization. The Alsatian and the Lorrainer leaned always toward French culture, and from the moment they were politically separated from the Holy Empire they had nothing more in common with German Kultur.

The Alsatian-Lorrainer, who from the point of view of character greatly resembles the free citizen of America, is a very practical man. He willingly makes use of all the opportunities in life to improve his economic condition, but joined to these qualities is a deeply rooted idealism which will make any sacrifice to secure his independence, and to assure for him the dignity of freedom. He has brilliant military qualities, but he will never be a militarist. He will fight bravely for the defence of a just cause about which he is enthusiastic, because it means the fulfilment of a sacred duty. But he will never be willing to remain under the dominion of a power like that of Prussia and be forced to carry arms for causes that he detests and disdains. The Alsatian-Lorrainer has no affection for dynasty, he is absolutely wanting in respect for the hierarchy; he has a feeling for order and equality before the law, he is loyal and respectful to authority but exempt from all servitude. The German, on the contrary, with his class feeling, abasing himself, as it were, in platitudes before his superiors, hard and arrogant toward his inferiors, in admiration before the Angestammtes Herrscherhaus (traditional dynasty), accustomed to march under the lash, without any idealism, finding in the distribution of the booty of war a compensation for all humiliations,—such a man does not understand that the Alsatian-Lorrainer does not rejoice to find himself belonging to a nation of the elect, a nation that has the most formidable war machine to crush, from time to time according to its whim, any growth of material prosperity effected by free competition in the economic struggle.

Alsace-Lorraine is impervious to those ideas. Against her will, she was torn from France and she wishes to return. It is this which makes clear her history from 1871 to this day.

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