In ten years M. Joseph Oberlé had used up, till he could no longer find a trace in himself, all that his temperament allowed him of resistance to oppose to an established power. He was rallied. His marriage with Monica Biehler, desired and arranged by the old and ardent patriot who voted in the Reichstag against Prince Bismarck, had had no influence on his new ideas and attitude, at first secret, soon suspected, then known, then affirmed, then scandalously published by M. Joseph Oberlé. He gave pledges to the Germans, then hostages. He overstepped the boundary. He went farther than obedience. The foremen of the factory, old soldiers of France, admirers of M. Philippe Oberlé, companions of his struggle against the Germanisation of Alsace, bore with difficulty the attitude of the new master and blamed him. One of them in a moment of impatience had said to him one day, "Do you think we are so particularly proud to work for a renegade like you?" He had been discharged. His comrades immediately had taken his part, interceded, talked, and threatened a strike. "Well, do it," the master had said; "I shall be delighted. You are all quarrelsome fellows; I shall replace you by Germans!" They did not believe in the threat, but when a fresh crisis arose M. Joseph Oberlé carried it into execution a little later, that he might not be accused of weakness, which he feared more than injustice, and because he thought he could gain some advantage by replacing the Alsatians, continual grumblers, by workmen from Baden and Wurtemburg who were better disciplined and more easily managed. A third of the employés at the saw-mill had thus been replaced. A little German colony had been established to the north of the village, in the houses built by the master, and the Alsatians who remained had to bend before the argument of daily bread. That happened in 1882. Some years later, they learned that M. Oberlé had sent his son Jean to be educated in Bavaria at the Munich gymnasium. In the same way he sent off his daughter Lucienne, placing her in the charge of the mistress of the most German school in Baden-Baden, the Mündner boarding-school. This last measure roused public opinion most of all. They were furious at this repudiation of Alsatian education and influence. They pitied Madame Oberlé thus separated from her son and deprived, as if she had been unworthy, of the right of bringing up her own daughter. To all those who blamed him the father replied, "It is for their good. I have spoiled my life; I do not wish them to spoil theirs. They will choose their road later when they have been able to make comparisons. But I will not have them from their very youth catalogued, pointed at, and inscribed on the official list as Alsatian pariahs." Sometimes he added: "You do not understand, then, all the sacrifice that I am making! I am sparing my children these sacrifices; I am devoting myself to them. But that does not mean that I am not suffering."