cannot be polled in the _Bundesrat_ except with the help of the Alsatian vote, those votes will not be counted. Up to this day Alsace-Lorraine has never ceased to be governed by a legislation outside of the common right. Today even, an act is pending in Berlin which provides exceptional measures for the suppression of journals printed in French. All the efforts of the Germans, the special legislation for Alsace-Lorraine, the activities of the functionaries, chiefly Germans brought from the four corners of the Empire, even the administration of justice, have had the tendency to exterminate and replace by the _Deutschtum_ (German culture) the spirit and the sentiments of the French people. All this effort and labour were doomed to failure. The Alsatians remained faithful to their ideals and to the policy expressed in their protest. Of course the form of this protest has changed with the current of events. The simple negation which marked the solemn protests of Bordeaux in 1871 and of Berlin in 1874 could not after the lapse of time, and should not now, determine the conduct of the people. The first necessity is to continue to exist, and there were finally organized political parties which fought passionately, as happens in every country in the world. But towards the Germans the real Alsatians were as one man as soon as some particular occasion presented itself, to show their aversion to the _Herrenvolk_ (the dominant people), as it pleased the Germans to call themselves. The demand of self-government for Alsace-Lorraine within the limits of the German Empire was only one way of showing the desire to be distinguished as much as possible from the Germans. It was the maximum that the Alsatians could legally require but the minimum of her real claim which always demanded the absolute return to France, the mother country. A very suggestive fact on this subject is that, in the electoral struggles between the natives, the different parties did not hesitate to mutually reproach each other with the desire to lean on the will or the influence of Germany. The first demonstration against the Germans was the exodus of a part of the population. The annual emigration continued until the War of 1914. Another sign of protest was the considerable number of _refractaires_ (defaulting conscripts) who up to that day had annually left the country by the hundreds to avoid German military service. Their property was seized and they never could return to the country. The greater number entered the Foreign Legion to fight for France.