Whatever the embarrassments of a reformed Germany as regards its former reigning house, naturally they did not weigh with the people of Metz. The inhabitants after the Armistice rose _en masse_, tore down the statues of the Hohenzollerns, and generally destroyed every outer symbol of Prussian domination. The effigy of William I. was overthrown by an excited crowd, and pictures of the event show the monarch on the ground while men, women, and children shake their fists at the prostrate form. The plinth, stripped of its ornaments and inscriptions, was allowed to remain, and with every possible haste the temporary figure of a victorious poilu was erected in order to replace that of the Kaiser. This figure was no longer _in situ_ at the time of our visit, and the plinth awaits its permanent memorial. The hard-worked German phrase, “Von seinem dankbaren Volk,” is still visible though half effaced on the plinth, but on the west side looking towards Verdun the Hohenzollern devices have been replaced by the three electric words crisp with victory, “On les a.” We English, who for centuries have never known the bitterness of alien conquest--among whom no tradition even survives of its sting and misery--can enter very faintly either into the anguish or the joy of countries conquered and then subsequently redeemed. Few stories of the war are more moving than the tales told of the entry of the French troops into Metz and Strasbourg. Indescribable enthusiasm prevailed among the French population. Not only were the liberating legions greeted with garlands and banners, but weeping men and women followed the French generals and prayed to be allowed to kiss their hands or touch the hem of their garments. On the Porte Serpinoise, the ancient gateway of the city, a long inscription has recently been erected which tells the tale of Metz in recent times from the treachery of Bazaine to the reunion with France in 1918. About this inscription there is little of the calm and measured language of the message usually carved in stone. The words are burning and passionate, torn from the heart of suffering, turned though it be at the last to joy. That the years of “separation cruelle” to which the gateway bears testimony were bitter indeed no one could doubt who has stood by the Porte Serpinoise and read its record of both defeat and victory. But has the world even yet laid to heart the moral of the German seizure of these provinces? Has France herself, greatest of all sufferers, applied the lesson to her own circumstances? Coming to Metz from Saarbrücken with a vivid recollection of all we had seen and heard there, I turned from the Porte Serpinoise with an uneasy question in my mind. When the first enthusiasms subside and the flowers and the garlands have faded, the practical business of life remains. The government of a mixed population is never an easy task, and the redeemed provinces will make heavy demands on the wisdom and generosity of France.