ll as fair; but her
pride has been trailed in the dust. For four centuries a free city,
defending herself virgin-like against all comers, for two centuries more
the happy capital of the loveliest of French provinces, she has borne
for forty years the chain of the conqueror and bowed her head beneath
the lash. But she is French still--French to the very core of her; and
though her hands are bound, her soul is free!

The oldest part of the town has changed but little with the centuries.
There are the narrow crooked streets, the tall half-timbered houses with
their many-dormered roofs, and there is the grey Minster, which has
looked down on the city through all her fortunes. To the north lie the
newer quarters of the town, spick and span, and to the south are great
arsenals and barracks, guarded by a mighty fortification.

For Strasbourg is now one of the great strongholds of the German Empire.
Haunted by the fear that France may one day come pouring up from the
south to regain her lost city, the engineers of the Kaiser have
laboured with their every talent for her defence. Far-flung, a circle of
fourteen forts girdles her round, and within them rampart follows
rampart, culminating in the mighty citadel.

What hope can an army, however great, have of capturing such a place? In
the mind of every German engineer there is but one adjective, and always
one, associated with it--impregnable.

And yet, in this mid-month of October, there was in the air a feeling of
uneasiness, impalpable, not to be defined or even spoken of--but
present, ever-present. From far-distant posts of the Empire, troops had
been hurried southward, until the usual garrison of fifteen thousand men
had been more than doubled. Every rampart was manned, every wall had its
sentry, and through the streets patrols moved constantly, their gaze
directed at the house-tops. Their orders were to see that no one
stretched a wire to any building; to arrest any one found doing so, and
send him at once to Berlin, under guard.

The restaurants, the hotels, the cafes--every place where crowds
assembled--swarmed with strangers, speaking French, it is true, but with
an accent which, to acute ears, betrayed their origin and made one
wonder at their pro-Gallic sentiments. The French and German residents
of the town drew imperceptibly apart, grew a little more formal, ceased
the exchange of friendly visits. No one knew what was about to happen,
but every one felt that a cr