he knew how to treat men, and had won golden opinions when, under difficult circumstances, he had been placed at the head of the administration of Schleswig, in 1864, and of the French provinces occupied by the German armies in 1871-73, where he had been on the best terms with Thiers. He forthwith inaugurated a new system of Government; liberty was accorded to the Press, and hitherto forbidden French and Ultramontane papers were admitted; he showed great benevolence to the Catholic clergy and to the Protestant Church; the hybrid system of mixed schools for both denominations was gradually abolished; he was accessible to every one, and listened with the same sympathy to a peasant bewailing the loss of a cow, as to a rich manufacturer; he travelled much in the country, endeavoring to see for himself, and entertained largely, freely conversing with the guests whom he daily invited to his table. Such qualities soon made the Marshal popular all over the country, but his rule was not without drawbacks. Being an old man he wanted to see speedy results, and was somewhat inclined to pull the grass in order to make it grow; for that purpose he thought it most expedient to win the sympathies of the "notables," and did everything to make himself agreeable to them. These men, of course, largely availed themselves of a disposition so profitable to them by requesting and obtaining ample favors. But it is just the bane of the Alsatian population that they are entirely dependent upon these notables, i.e. the lawyers, notaries, rich manufacturers, and great landed proprietors. The true policy of the German Government, therefore, ought to be to emancipate the peasants from this influence; while in obliging the notables Manteuffel in creased it, and at the same time discontented his own functionaries. He was, besides, not always lucky in the choice of his instruments. The Secretary of State, Herzog, was too independent for him; he was dismissed and replaced by Herr Hofmann, who was satisfied with simply executing the Governor's orders. The Secretary for Finance, Herr von Mayr, made an unlucky attempt to enlarge the Government tobacco manufacture by suddenly increasing its producNEW SERIES.-VOL. XLVI., No. 3 tion, which led to complete failure and a heavy financial loss. Reforms were sometimes hastily introduced and did not work well; there were too many changes, and by far too many new laws. It may, therefore, be said, that when in July 1884 Manteuffel suddenly died, his popularity was on the wane, although he was personally much regretted. His successor was Prince Hohenlohe, late German Ambassador at Paris; he had proved an excellent diplomatic representative under difficult circumstances-a man cool-headed, of keen intellect for international relations, of conciliatory disposition, and a grand seigneur of obliging manners, who had the additional advantage of not being a Prussian. But he had not succeeded as administrator when he was minister in Bavaria, and, in fact, was chosen as Governor because his place at Paris was wanted for Count Münster, who had to make room for Count Hazfeldt in London, so that Count Herbert Bismarck might become Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. Prince Hohenlohe followed a system different to that of his predecessor; he did not place himself in the foreground, but rather took the position of a constitutional president, speaking only when circumstances required it. It, therefore, excited general astonishment when, before the late elections to the Reichstag, he came forward with a proclamation couched in very decisive terms. The case was this. Under the administration of President von Möller the Town Council of Strassburg, in consequence of demonstrations hostile to the Government, was dissolved, and the administration of the city handed over to a deputy-burgomaster, Herr Back, who did his work thoroughly well. Prince Hohenlohe re-established the Town Council, the majority of the elections turned favorable to the Government, and the Council elected Back burgomaster. The Secretary of burgomaster. Shortly before the visit of the Emperor, in autumn last, the Governor wished the members of the Council to be presented to him; the hostile minority did not appear on this occasion, but after the ceremony the presented members, adjourning for refreshment to a public-house, Herr Back proposed to sign a petition to the Em. 25 peror, asking that the sum which the town had to pay to the State for the acquisition of building-grounds should be paid in longer instalments. This was done, and the petition was favorably entertained by the Emperor. But the minority strongly objected to this step, insisting, not without reason, that it was illegal, an accidental union of the majority being no sitting of the Council, which alone had the right to decide whether a petition should be sent. Bitter discussions ensued; and somewhat afterward, rumors of war being afloat, the Secretary of State, when the question of the Military Septennate arose in the Reichstag, thought fit to deliver in the Provincial Assembly a highly-political speech, in which he developed the dangers which Alsace-Lorraine would incur in case of a war with France, and strongly pressed them to support the Government in maintaining peace by voting for the Septennate. All the Alsatian deputies save one voted, however, against the Government in the Reichstag, and then Prince Hohenlohe issued a strong proclamation in which he asked the electors whether they would frankly acknowledge the validity of the Treaty of Frankfort, or would accept the responsibility of hostile elections, and stated that the issue of the elections would be decisive for the continuance of a benevolent system of Government. This most injudicious measure, to which the Governor was persuaded by Herr Back, and a subaltern officer of the University, Dr. Schricker, had a very bad effect; instead of intimidating the electors, it exasperated and drove them into the most decisive opposition; all the elections turned against the Government. This, as far as I can see, was not a special manifestation of hostility against Germany, but a protest against Government pressure; the fear of the vengeance of the French in case of war against all partisans of Germany operating in the same sense. But be that as it may, the result of the elections was a decisive defeat of the Government, especially galling for Prince Hohenlohe, and it was but natural that such an event must react on the future administration. The Chancellor was for a sweeping measure; he proposed to suppress not only the autonomy of the province, but even its quality as a state : it should be governed simply as a dependency of the Empire placed under the internal department of the Imperial Chancery (Reichsamt des Inneren). But the Emperor decisively opposed such proceedings, saying that after his last visit to Alsace he believed in the loyalty of the majority of the inhabitants. Prince Hohenlohe was of the same opinion, and the Chancellor was obliged to give way. So the only formal change will be, that the Reichstag will resume the legislative power for AlsaceLorraine which was partly suspended during the last years; but, of course, the government will be conducted in a somewhat different spirit. Experience has shown that proving gracious will avail as little as menaces : the people were accustomed to the régime of French prefects, ruling, as Napoleon I. did, with an iron hand in a velvet glove. The influence of the notables will be at an end, and the agitation of the lower clergy will no more be tolerated. A more stringent régime will be adopted as to the nationality of the inhabitants; the liberty of emigrating will, of course, be maintained, but the emigrants in renouncing their allegiance must take the consequences, and will not be allowed to reside in the country, except as strangers. The German popular schools have done well, but the higher classes continue to send their sons to the French lycées, whence they return with Chauvinist ideas. This will change if those young men are placed in the necessity of choosing whether they will belong to France or to Alsace-Lorraine. A firm administration by an intelligent bureaucracy will, however, not suffice to overcome the influence of the notables; the population must enjoy self-government, and for that purpose its organs must have real power. The French administrative system, which was hitherto adhered to, gives the show of self-government without its essence, by institutions such as the Conseil Général and the Conseil d'Arrondissement. The Government was disposed to give real power to the district assemblies; but the notables would not hear of it, because the peasantry would be largely represented in these bodies, and their paramount influence would be broken. A reform of this kind, therefore, appears The most important question regards the general position, constitutional as well as national, of Alsace-Lorraine. It is evident that it cannot forever remain in the present transitory state of a Reichsland, a dependency of the Empire, practically governed by Berlin decrees; the inhabitants have a right to demand that they shall enjoy the same rights as Saxons, Badeners, or Bavarians, and that their State shall be represented in the Federal Council as is Hesse and Wurtemberg. But in order to obtain such independence they must have a real sovereign, residing at Strassburg; and with that question we are touching the national difficulty. Now, if that difficulty is to be overcome, the French must understand that under no condition whatever will Germany give up Alsace we have taken it for the above-mentioned imperative reasons of our military security, and we are resolved to keep it at any risk, just as England is resolved to keep Malta. When even men of moderate views in general politics, such as Jules Simon, speak of the crime of having dismembered France, and say, "Those who have torn Alsace-Lorraine from France in 1871 have, by their own will, prepared a cause of eternal war" (Revue Internationale, April 26, 1887, p. 169), we can only answer, as Bismarck told Jules Favre, that French honor is not made of a different stuff from that of all other nations. They find it perfectly natural to annex Nice and Savoy, but consider it inadmissible that France, wantonly attacking Germany, should pay its defeat by a loss of territory. From Henry IV. to the present time they have constantly encroached upon the domains of their neighbors; even after having merged Europe for centuries in bloodshed and wars of conquest, they considered themselves ill-used when after Napoleon's crushing defeat they were simply reduced to the frontiers of 1792, and were obliged to give up part of the plunder of art treasures which they had carried away from the different European countries. They have plotted under Charles X., Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III. for the left bank of the Rhine and Belgium. Germany is firmly resolved that such things shall not recur. If the French choose to exhaust their resources by excessive armaments in prospect of a war of revenge, they may do so; we shall not attack them, but we are perfectly prepared to hold our own. Even the idea of neutralizing Alsace cannot be entertained for a moment; a small independent State such as Switzerland or Belgium may enjoy a permanent neutrality, and act as a wholesome buffer between France and Germany, but the case of Chablais and Faucigny becoming French by the annexation of Savoy in 1860, shows what the neutrality of a small part of a great State is worth; we have not spent for nothing so many millions to make Strassburg an impregnable fortress. The case stands different with Lorraine, as I have stated before; with the exception of a few border towns it is not a German country; its union with Alsace hinders the latter from becoming German, and its loss was particularly galling to the French. An old keensighted Alsatian, Victor Chauffour, said to me in 1872, "I perfectly conceive that Germany was obliged to take Alsace, but Metz, 'c'est l'épée dans les reins de la France.' Besides, the military importance of Metz for Germany is contested. Marshal von Manteuffel was convinced that we could dispense with it if we had another strong fortress north of Alsace, and such a place would Luxemburg be. After the death of the present King of Holland the personal union of the Grand Duchy with Holland will cease, and the Duke of Nassau will become Grand Duke of Luxemburg; the country will be perfectly free to become a member of the German Empire such as Saxony or Baden. But by the treaty of May 11, 1867, signed at London, Luxemburg is neutralized under the guarantee of the Great Powers. If that treaty was abrogated and Germany was free to make the town of Luxemburg a first-class fortress, I think we might consent, for some compensation, to the retrocession of Lorraine to France, with the exception of the German border places, and then Alsace might be united to the neigh boring Grand Duchy of Baden, with which it is connected by close affinity of the same race and analogous interests. But, of course, Germany could only consent to this sacrifice on the distinct understanding that every plan of recovering Alsace would be once for all abandoned by France. Such a compromise seems to me the only possible means of putting an end to the present I tension between the two countries. do not know whether, if it were put forward, it would be favorably entertained at Berlin, but I know that it would be the utmost concession for which France might hope, without a new and terrible war, compared with which, as Prince Bismarck stated in his speech of January 11, that of 1870-71 would be mere child's play. -National Review. GEORGIAN AND VICTORIAN EXPANSION.* BY PROFESSOR J. R. SEELEY. SIR ROBERT REDE's lecturer ought to be careful in the choice of his subject. He speaks but once, he speaks to an audience not purely academic, and yet he speaks in the Senate House of Cambridge. How to find a subject worthy of the Senate House of Cambridge, and yet not abstruse, and at the same time a subject which can be profitably treated in a single lecture? A subject is at this moment occupying all minds which, being historical, falls within my own department. When we survey her Majesty's reign of fifty years, when we ask ourselves, has it been a happy and glorious reign, and how does the Victorian age look when it is compared with other similar periods of English history? we certainly ask a question which is historical. The Rede Lecture ought not, in my opinion, to be turned into a commemorative oration; I shall not appeal to your feelings. But I can hardly refuse a subject which is, as it were, presented to me. Not, in deed, that I would attempt to furnish a direct answer to this question of the year. If a panegyric would be out of place, anything short of a panegyric at this moment would shock your feelings. But I hope to say something on historical periods in general, on periods in English history, and more particularly on those recent periods which have a kind of family likeness to the age of Queen Victoria; to say something which may help you to discern where we stand at this moment and in what direction we are moving. *The Rede Lecture, 1887. In this particular age certain happy and bright features are more than usually manifest; but in general what can be more difficult and uncertain than to pass judgment upon an age, to pronounce it glorious or the contrary? "Glorious" is a relative term; we can have no right to award it until we have made a comparison between the age in question and other ages. Now the only age we can know well is our own, for it is the only one we can observe closely; but for the purpose of comparison we ought to know many ages; and to know many ages, even sufficiently, is the boast of but few historical students. We try to judge without a standard, to find our bearings without a compass. Who does not know how idle and empty are all those speculations, which used to be so fashionable, as to whether the old time was better or worse than the present? We smile now when we hear speak of the good old time; and not less unreal is the bad old time which haunts the brain of modern revolutionaries, an imaginary period when mankind were given over to monstrous tyrannies and superstitions. Both the good and the evil seem supernatural only because in the region of the past we are unfamiliar, because we lose the measure of things and the use of our judgment. In like manner about the Victorian age we may easily fall, when we try to form a general estimate of it, into vague exaggeration. If we are so inclined, we easily persuade ourselves that it far surpasses all former ages; on the other hand, those who are otherwise inclined-and at this moment of depression, confusion, and anxiety there are not a few-might without much trouble dress up a paradox to the effect that all its glories are a vain delusion, and that it is in reality a period of dissolution and decline. I do not, indeed, think that such a paradox could ever produce conviction. When the Queen began to reign, the world was full of St. Simonian doctrines, which turned on the idea of progress, of a heaven in the future of society, of a golden age before us, not behind us. The idea has now passed into a commonplace, into a fixed belief, which we may be in danger of exaggerating, but are in no danger of renouncing. The older idea of a law of degeneracy, of a "fatal drift toward the worse, is as obsolete as astrology, or the belief in witchcraft. The human race has become hopeful, sanguine. Hence we are no longer easily frightened or depressed, and you might unroll a most dismal catalogue of the evils of the time, but you would never induce this present generation to admit that the course of things is down ward, for they have come to regard it as an axiom-unreasonably, as it seems to me-that we move upward. Such a sanguine spirit overcomes evil with good." sweeps the evil out of sight, leaves it behind, forgets to think of it, and in any case absolutely refuses to submit to it. Such a spirit has been favored in the present age by the extremely palpable, startling character of the progress made in certain departments. Discoveries in almost every branch of science that take our breath away, inventions that transform human life and that bring the whole planet under our control, a rush of new ideas and views overwhelming the faculty of apprehension-all this converts the idea of progress into an evident fact. And, therefore, however much may be alleged by way of drawback, this age will, I think, continue to believe in itself. And when a French poet predicts that a hundred years hence it will be remembered as an age of brass, we shall answer that an age of mere material progress might deserve such an epithet, but that this is also an age of unparalleled scientific discovery. It is also true, however, that after half a century we have grown accustomed to railroads and steamboats, and that the modern rapidity of movement, and also the modern abundance of sensation, have lost their first charm. We have passed, as it were, into a new world, but we find, now that we have had time to look about us, that it is fundamentally much the same as the old world, the same unsatisfactory mixture of good and evil. Everything is on a larger scale, but evil also is larger and more appalling. Every new light has its new shadow. By the side of national wealth we have national debts, reckoned in figures which we might call astronomical, by the side of the great inventions of convenience, portentous engines of destruction. If a nation grows, its army grows in still greater proportion, or its metropolis becomes a prodigious hive reducing philanthropy and political economy to despair. The vastness of everything appalls us. We seem threatened by wars and catastrophes for which history affords no precedent. Even good things come in a deluge which threatens to drown us. We are hampered with new ideas which we have not energy to assimilate, new sciences we have no time to learn. There is even too much pleasure. Enjoyment, which used to be associated with idleness, has become now an exhausting industry. The literary sense perishes for want of repose; and all those delicate, sacred things, which ask time, habitude, quietude, discipline, reticence, abstinence, all such things as art, manners, idealism, self-sacrifice, religion, seem to inquire by what new arrangement they may be enabled to live under such new conditions. This is what we learn from the second Locksley Hall. There the poet whose literary career measures out the whole Victorian age, and whose first works were full of the St. Simonian phrases, "the future man, "the crowning race, the great race that is to be,' acknowledges a certain disappointment. Reality at the best has something about it incurably common; it can never keep pace with poetic imagination. The most prosperous voyage, though it may take us into happy and rich regions, does not after all, as it seemed to promise, take us where earth and heaven meet. But again does it not strike us that it is an English Jubilee we celebrate, and |