The French government from 1648 to 1789 was tender to the traditions of the conquered territory. Except for the prescription of French in the courts, no restrictions were put on the use of the German language, although French naturally made rapid progress in the towns. There was little change in local institutions. In spite of its centralized monarchy, France itself abounded in local customs, privileges, and jurisdictions, and it was natural and prudent to allow even greater toleration in a newly conquered territory. Subject to the Sovereign Council and the intendant, local affairs went on very much in their old way and in large measure in the German tongue. Much was accomplished for the material wellbeing of the country, and the inhabitants came to recognize certain advantages in French rule. The old regime was a period of gradual assimilation without violence. The institutions which the old regime tolerated in Alsace, the Revolution swept away. German historians naturally emphasize the excesses and violence of the Revolution, French historians its social and political reforms; but there is general agreement that it took long and rapid strides in the direction of making the country French. “It made an end of all the German mediaeval institutions which remained,” is the sad summary of Meyer’s _Handlexikon_.[18] The Revolution destroyed privilege, abolished seigniorial rights and jurisdictions, and established a democratic social order as fully in Alsace and Lorraine as in the rest of France. There was of course opposition, and the anti-religious policy of the Revolution was steadily resisted by this strongly Catholic population, but in general Alsace and Lorraine moved with the new movement. The Marseillaise was first sung at Strasburg; Alsatians served in great numbers in the armies which carried the principles of 1789 across Europe; and names like Kléber and Ney illustrate the share of these provinces in the wars of the Napoleonic era. The acceptance of the Revolution in Alsace and Lorraine made them at last one with France. “It is the Revolution, not Louis XIV, which made Alsace French,” wrote Fustel de Coulanges in 1870. “Since that moment Alsace has followed all our destinies, it has lived our life. It has shared all our thoughts and feelings, our victories and defeats, our glory and our defects, all our joys and all our sorrows.”[19] By 1813, confess the German historians of Alsace, “all feeling for Germany had been lost,” and “no trace remained of the ancient community of race between the Alsatians and their German brothers.”[20]