None the less, all these difficulties had the effect of inducing the German Government to modify their method of demanding payment. A monthly war tax of forty million francs was substituted for all the levies in the occupied area. EXAMPLES OF THE SAME BREACH OF LAW IN FRANCE The following is the notice which informed the inhabitants of Lunéville of the tax in which they had been mulcted— “On the 25th August, 1914” (runs the notice), “the inhabitants of Lunéville made an attack by ambuscade on German columns and trains. On the same day the inhabitants fired on medical sections wearing the Red Cross. Moreover, they fired on German wounded, and on the military hospital, which included a German ambulance. _On account of these hostile acts a contribution of 650,000 francs is levied on the Commune of Lunéville._ The mayor was ordered to pay this sum in gold (and in silver up to 50,000 francs) on the 6th September at 9 a.m., into the hands of the representative of the German military authority. Any objection will be considered null and void. No delay will be allowed. If the commune does not punctually carry out the order to pay the sum of 650,000 francs _all the property that can be requisitioned will be seized. In case of non-payment, a house-to-house investigation will be made and all the inhabitants will be searched. Whoever knowingly conceals money, or tries to secure his property from being seized by the military authority, or who tries to leave the town, will be shot._ The mayor and hostages taken by the military authority will be held responsible for the exact carrying out of the orders given herewith. The mayor’s staff are ordered to make known these instructions at once to the Commune. “Commandant-in-Chief VON FOSBENDER. “Hénaménil, 3rd September, 1914.” “A perusal of this ineffable document,” says the Report of the French Commission, “entitles one to ask whether the arson and murder committed at Lunéville on the 25th and 26th August by an army which was not acting under the excitement of battle, and which had refrained from killing during the previous days, were not deliberately ordered for the purpose of adding verisimilitude to an allegation which was to serve as a pretext for the demand for an indemnity.”