The Gallo-Teutonic line of the Rhine was the scene of many a struggle during the reign of Clovis. In the days of Charlemagne the dwellers on the right bank of the Rhine were the “gens atroces et féroces” of French chroniclers. They represented northern barbarians, the foes of Christianity and of the civilization which Rome had given to the world. Before becoming a German river the Rhine flowed in a valley peopled by inhabitants of Celtic speech. The name it bears is of Celtic origin. When men of Teutonic speech began to press westward, the river supplied a natural moat which, for a long period, had formed part of the system of defense devised by the earlier inhabitants of the land. The strength of the position is attested by the slowness of Germanic infiltration on the left bank of the river. To this day the valley province owes more to France in thought and ideals than to any other country. The Alsatian temperament has much of that mental sunshine which Mirabeau calls the “fond gaillard.” This is assuredly not derived from Germany. His wit is of the true Gallic type--mocking, and tending to the Rabelaisian; its geniality is reserved for France and French institutions, its caustic side for Germany and Germans. It could never have proceeded from the ponderous Teutonic mentality. Alsatians are French in spirit because they know how to laugh well, to laugh as civilized men with the cheer that brightens the good and the irony that draws out in full relief the ugliness of evil. The spread of the French language in Alsace after the conquest of Strassburg by the soldiers of Louis XIV was slow. The French governors of the province never compelled the Alsatians to study their language. Up to the time of the French Revolution, French served as the medium of intercourse in official circles and among the nobility. The mass of the people, however, retained their vernacular. Freedom, granted by the French civil administration, was equally maintained by the official representatives of French ecclesiastical authority. Religious tolerance in Alsace was felt notably at the time of the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the province being probably the only one in which Protestant Frenchmen were unmolested. Moral ties with France were thus cemented by the extremely liberal character of French rule.