And in the face of all this our people evidenced restraint and admirable dignity, although they were provoked that day by seeing the automobiles going around which were taking away these unfortunate people. They all went away shouting "Vive la France. Vive la Liberté!" and singing the Marseillaise. They cheered up those who remained; their poor mothers who were weeping, and the children. With voices almost strangled with tears, and pale with suffering, they told them not to cry as they themselves would not; but bore themselves proudly in the presence of their executioners.
Another document shows better than all this talking the treatment the French have been receiving from the Germans for over thirty months. This document is a German notice which was found at Holnon, northwest of St. Quentin. The document bore the official seal of the German commander.
All workmen, women and children over fifteen years of age must work in the fields every day, also on Sunday, from four o'clock in the morning until eight o'clock at night, French time. For rest they shall have a half-hour in the morning, an hour at noon and a half-hour in the afternoon. Failure to obey this order will be punished in the following manner:--
1.--The men who are lazy will be collected for the period of the harvest in a company of workmen under the inspection of German corporals. After the harvest the lazy will be imprisoned for six months and every third day their nourishment shall be only bread and water.
2.--Lazy women shall be exiled to Holnon to work. After the harvest the women will be imprisoned six months.
3.--The children who do not work shall be punished with blows from a club.
Furthermore, the commandant reserves the right to punish men who do not work with twenty blows from a club daily.
Workmen in the Commune of Verdelles have been punished severely.
Von Bethmann-Hollweg, Count von Hertling and Herr von Kuhlmann state that Alsace-Lorraine is a province of the German Empire by right and by fact, and that it is firmly attached to Germany.
The following picture shows how this _German_ province is treated by Germany:
The Government has established for the duration of the war an insurmountable barrier between Alsace-Lorraine, which is called a territory of the Empire, and the rest of the German states. Briefly, Alsace-Lorraine is treated as a suspect.