"If I have here uttered an untrue syllable, I give M. de Bismarck permission to treat my modest dwelling as if it were a villa of Saint Cloud."
The literary brethren whose pictures of Alsatian peasant life, both in war and peace, have become world-wide classics, suffered no less than their brilliant contemporary, and their works written after annexation breathe equal bitterness. The celebrated partnership which began in 1848 and lasted for a quarter of a century, has been thus described by Edmond About: "The two friends see each other very rarely, whether in Paris or in the Vosges. When they do meet, they together elaborate the scheme of a new work. Then Erckmann writes it. Chatrian corrects it--and sometimes puts it in the fire!" One at least of their plays enjoys equal popularity with the novel from which it is drawn. To have witnessed _L'Ami Fritz_ at Molière's house in the last decade of the nineteenth century was an experience to remember. That consummate artist, Got, was at his very best--if the superlative in such a case is applicable--as the good old Rabbi. No less enchanting was Mlle. Reichenbach, the _doyenne_ of the Comédie Française, as Suzel. Of this charming artist Sarcey wrote that, having attained her sixteenth year, there she made the long-stop, never oldening with others. _L'Ami Fritz_ is, in reality, a German bucolic, the scene being laid in Bavaria. But it has long been accepted as a classic, and on the stage it becomes thoroughly French. This delightful story was written in 1864, that is to say, before any war-cloud had arisen over the eastern frontier, and before the evocation of a fiend as terrible, the anti-Jewish crusade culminating in the Dreyfus crime.
It is painful to reflect that whilst twenty years ago the engaging old Jew of this piece was vociferously acclaimed on the first French stage, the drama of a gifted Jewish writer has this year been banned in Paris!
Edmond About and Erckmann and Chatrian belong to the same period as another native, and more famous, genius, the precocious, superabundantly endowed Gustave Doré. Of this "admirable Crichton" I give a sketch.
For mere holiday-makers in search of exhilaration and beauty, Alsace offers attractions innumerable, sites grandiose and idyllic, picturesque ruins, superb forests, old churches of rare interest and many a splendid historic pile.