ent the following appeal to the nations of Europe: "Europe cannot
permit or ratify the abandonment of Alsace and Lorraine. The civilized
nations, as guardians of justice and national rights, cannot remain
indifferent to the fate of their neighbor under pain of becoming in
their turn victims of the outrages they have tolerated. Modern Europe
cannot allow a people to be seized like a herd of cattle; she cannot
continue deaf to the repeated protest of threatened nationalities. She
owes it to her instinct of self-preservation to forbid such abuses of
her power. She knows too that the unity of France is now, as in the
past, a guarantee of the general order of the world, a barrier against
the spirit of conquest and invasion. Peace concluded at the price of
cession of territory could be nothing but a costly truce, not a final
peace. It would be for a cause of international unrest, a permanent and
legitimate provocation of war."

Even after this wonderful appeal, still another final plea was made, but
it did no good. The heartless Bismarck had France by the throat and
other nations seemed afraid to champion the cause of these helpless
people. Thus the whole world reaped the reward of silence when great
principles were involved. I have given the protest almost in full,
quoting it from David Starr Jordan, that readers of this chapter can
behold the evil effects of accepting a peace when the rights of people
are left out of the question.

A provision in this Treaty of Frankfort allowed those who wished to
cross the line into France to go. Of course this would involve leaving
their homes, their farms, their old neighbors and everything else that
they could not take along. More than a year was given for this and on
the last day of grace one author says: "All those who had means of
transportation rode in carts, wagons, carriages, running over the black
roads. Whole families drove their cattle. Old men dragged themselves on,
leaning on the shoulders of young women who bore at the breast new-born
children. Sick men, who wished not to die German, were carried bodily
that they might draw their last breath on the frontier of Nancy and
thank heaven to die on French soil."

Then the Germans tried to blot out all traces of France. The French
language was forbidden in schools, on advertisements or even on tombs.
Police and secret service men watched the inhabitants and men were
imprisoned for any demonstration whatsoever that exalted France