There is, in the first place, no question that both Alsace and Lorraine formed part of the mediaeval Empire from the tenth century on. It is also equally clear that the Empire of the Middle Ages was in no way comparable to the national states of modern Europe, but was a loose union of tribal duchies which were later dissolved into a mass of petty feudal states and free cities. The Emperors never succeeded in establishing a strong monarchy or real national unity, being, by virtue of their imperial title, often more interested in asserting a shadowy supremacy over Italy and the valley of the Rhone. In the broader sense the Empire covered at one time or another a considerable part of Europe, as, for example, central and northern Italy and eastern France; in the narrower sense the German kingdom comprised under its loose and ineffective sway the territory of modern Holland, eastern Belgium, a good part of Switzerland, Austria, Bohemia, et cetera. As time went on, the principalities and towns became more rather than less independent, until the treaty of Westphalia (1648) recognized the territorial sovereignty of such princes as had not already established it. Membership in so large and unconsolidated a body would not establish the German character of any particular member, else it would be necessary to incorporate many parts of Europe which have long enjoyed complete independence of Germany. Moreover, it is important to note that the present German empire is not a continuation of the mediaeval Empire or a successor thereto. The old Empire came to an end in 1806, when Francis I laid aside the imperial crown and assumed the title of emperor of Austria. The modern German empire was created by Prussia in 1871 as a federation of German states from which Austria was carefully excluded. If the mediaeval Emperors had a legitimate successor, it was the Hapsburgs, not the Hohenzollerns, who were in the days of the older Empire merely one of many lines of feudal and electoral princes. The Hapsburgs made over to France their claims to Alsace and Lorraine, to Alsace and Metz in 1648, to the duchy of Lorraine in 1738. On the other hand the cultural ties between Germany and Alsace, and in some measure between Germany and Lorraine, were stronger than the political. Alsace had its share in the literary and artistic development of the Rhine valley, and this, while affected by the French influences which spread eastward in the later Middle Ages, was preponderantly German. In the matter of speech French historians admit that “Alsace at the beginning of the seventeenth century was an absolutely German country,” and its local dialect was the vehicle of its vigorous local traditions. “At the moment when it passed under French rule it belonged to Germany in language, habits, institutions, and feeling.”[17]