A year has passed since then, and instead of getting nearer to it they are miles further back than the place where Lieutenant Mayer met his death. Pfetterhausen and Montreux Vieux and Dannemarie and a good slice of Alsace are still in the hands of the French, and the siege of Belfort (unless the enemy try the desperate expedient of a flanking movement through Switzerland) is more unlikely than ever. So confident are the authorities of their security that most of the civil inhabitants who had been evacuated at the time of our first visit have now been allowed to return, and the life of the town is becoming almost normal again. That is a healthy sign. It is one of the numerous proofs that the apparent deadlock at the front is really a signal victory for the Allies. For it means that for all their carefully prepared organization and their calm disregard of the conventions of war by which the other nations consider themselves bound, the original plans of the enemy have broken down. The cupolas of the forts of Belfort, which were to have been so easily crushed, are still intact; their guns have not yet fired a shot, except at aeroplanes. As in 1870, no German soldier has set foot within its walls. Its famous lion is still a lion _couchant_. Just before starting on our way back to Dijon we paid a visit to M. Goublet, the Civil Governor and Préfet of the Territoire de Belfort (who has rejoined his old service, the Navy, and is now in command of a small cruiser), another warm friend and admirer of England and _The Times_. During the war M. Goublet and all his fellow-préfets of the border provinces have been most valuable servants of the State. No men in France, except perhaps the ministers and the great chiefs of the army, have had heavier responsibilities on their shoulders or more anxious duties to perform, and no account of the way in which France has faced the invader can be anything like complete which does not give some idea of their share in the common work.