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Updated: June 21, 2025
It was clear les Anglais had not carried off all the fruit! At Coulommiers, as elsewhere, you may search in vain for rags, dirt, or a sign of beggary. Every one is rich, independent, and happy. Few travellers in this part of Eastern France turn off the Great Mulhouse line of railway to visit the ancient city of Provins, yet none with a love of the picturesque can afford to pass it by.
Among the envoys were many who undertook to remonstrate in a friendly fashion about the imposition of the "Bad Penny" tax on the Alsatians, and the over-severity of Hagenbach's administration. The cause of Mulhouse, too, was urged, notably by Berne. The representations of these last envoys were received most courteously.
I could hardly believe that they had, for I had studied conditions in the "lost provinces" before the war. Still, the Wilhelmstrasse propaganda was convincing millions that the Alsatians received the French very coldly when they invaded the province to Mulhouse, and that they greeted the German troops most heartily when they drove back the invader.
At Mulhouse the probabilities of average life are twenty-nine years for children of the well-to-do class and TWO years for those of the workers; in 1812 the average life in the same locality was twenty-five years, nine months, and twelve days, while in 1827 it was not over twenty-one years and nine months. And yet throughout France the average life is longer. What does this mean?
As badly battered as it was Prince succeeded in bringing it back from over Mulhouse, where the fight occurred, to his field at Luxeuil. The same day that Prince was so nearly brought down Lufbery missed death by a very small margin. He had taken on more gasoline and made another sortie. When over the lines again he encountered a German with whom he had a fighting acquaintance.
The workmen at Mulhouse are paid once a fortnight, in some cases monthly, and it is usually after pay-day that such celebrations occur. We saw one Sunday afternoon quite a procession of carriages returning from the church to the cite ouvriere, for upon these occasions nobody goes on foot.
It gave Parisian journalists, gagged about all other aspects of the war zone, a chance of heroic writing, filled with the emotion of old heartaches now changed to joy. Only the indiscretion of a deputy hinted for a moment at a bad reverse at Mulhouse, when a regiment recruited from the South, broke and fled under the fire of German guns because they were unsupported by their own artillery.
As for the local Councils, they are not allowed to discuss any political questions whatsoever. A representative of the police is present at every meeting to enforce this rule to the letter. The people do not even get the sugared Reichstag reports, as does the rest of Germany. These are specially re-censored at Mulhouse.
And were he living still, that great and good man, burning as was his patriotism, inextinguishable as was his love for France, would doubtless echo the words I now heard on every lip, "Peace, peace; only let us have peace!" Whilst at Strasburg German has crowded out French, at Mulhouse I found French still universally spoken.
There are free libraries for all, and a very handsome museum has been opened within the last few years, containing some fine modern French pictures, all gifts of the Dollfrees, Engels, and Koechlins, to their native town. The museum, like everything else at Mulhouse, is as French as French can be, no German element visible anywhere.
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