s to eliminate every vestige of French
influence in the two provinces. The use of the French language,
whether in speech or writing, is strictly forbidden. To print,
sell, offer for sale, or purchase anything in French is to commit a
crime. Detectives are everywhere on the alert to discover
violations of the law. All French trade names have been changed to
their German equivalents. For example, the sign _Guillaume Rondee,
Tailleur_, has come down, and if the tradesman wants to continue in
his business _Wilhelm Rondee, Schneider_, must go up. He may have
a quantity of valuable business forms or letter-heads in
French--even if they contain only one French word they must be
destroyed. And those intimate friends who are accustomed to
address him by his first name must bear in mind that it is
_Wilhelm_.

Eloise was a milliner at the outbreak of the war. Today, if she
desires to continue her business, she is obliged to remove the
final "e" and thus Germanise her name.

After having been fed in Berlin on stories of Alsatian loyalty to
the Kaiser, I was naturally puzzled by these things. If Guillaume
had rushed into the street to cheer the German colours when the
French were driven back, and Eloise had hung upon the neck of the
German Michael, was it not rather ungrateful of the Prussians
subsequently to persecute them even to the stamping out of their
names? Not only that, but to be so efficient in hate that even
inscriptions on tombstones may no longer be written in French?

Alsace-Lorraine is to be literally _Elsass-Lothringen_ to the last
detail.

The truth of the matter is that the Alsatians greeted the French as
deliverers and were depressed when they fell back. This, as might
be expected, exasperated Prussia, for it was a slap in the face for
her system of government by oppression. Thus, at the very time
that the _Nachrichtendienst_ (News Service) connected with the
Wilhelmstrasse was instructing Germans and neutrals that the
Alsatians' enthusiastic reception of German troops was evidence of
their approval of German rule, the military authorities were
posting quite a different kind of notice in Alsace, a notice which
reveals the true story.

"During the transport of French prisoners of war a portion of the
populace has given expression to a feeling of sympathy for these
prisoners and for France. This is to inform all whom it may
concern that such expressions of sympathy are criminal and
punishab