“Give me your hand, sir!” I cried, greatly moved.  “You are talking to a republican.  I am, or used to be, a citizen of free America!”

“I am happy to embrace you,” said the burgher; and I believe he was on the point of doing it, literally as well as figuratively.  “I, for my part, whatever they make of me, am at least an Alsatian.  But I am half ashamed to talk to an American.  On the 29th I went to see our troops evacuate the city by the Faubourg National.  I found myself elbow to elbow in the throng with the consul from the United States:  never in my life shall I forget the indignant surprise of your compatriot.”

“Why should our consul be indignant at disaster?” I demanded.

[Illustration:  VOICI Le sabre!]

“Why, sir, the throng that rolled toward the grave Prussian troops was composed of desperadoes inflamed with wine, flourishing broken guns and stumps of sabres, and insulting equally, with many a drunken oath, the conquerors and our own loyal general Uhrich.  The American consul, blushing with shame for our common humanity, said, ’This is the second time I have watched the capitulation of an army.  The first time it was the soldiers of General Lee, who yielded to the Northern troops.  Those brave Confederates came toward us silent and dignified, bearing arms reversed, as at a funeral.  We respected them as heroes, while here—­’ But I cannot repeat to you, sir, what your representative proceeded to add.  That revolting sight,” continued my informant, “was the last glimpse we had of France our protector.  When we returned to the city a Prussian band played German airs to us at the foot of Kleber’s statue.  We are Teutonized now.  At least,” concluded the burgher, taking me by the shoulders to hiss the words through my ears in a safe corner, “we are Germans officially.  But I, for my part, am Alsatian for ever and for ever!”

[Illustration:  Street of the great arcades.]

Greatly delighted to have encountered so near a witness and so minute a chronicler of the disasters of the town, I invited the professor to accompany me in exploring it, my interest having vastly increased during his recital; but he pleaded business, and, shaking both my hands and smiling upon me out of a sort of moulding formed around his face by his shirt-collars, dismissed me.  So, then, once more, with a hitch to my tin box, I became a lonely lounger.  I viewed the church of Saint Thomas, the public place named after Kleber, who was born here, some of the markets and a beer establishment.  In the church of Saint Thomas I examined the monument to Marshal Saxe, by Pigalle.  I should have expected to see a simple statue of the hero in the act of breaking a horseshoe or rolling up a silver plate into a bouquet-holder, according to the Guy-Livingstone habits in which he appears to have passed his life, and was more surprised than edified at sight of the large allegorical family with