It is difficult to arrive at the truth as to
the number of involun- tary emigrants from Alsace, the French in their excitement going as high as 350,000—an impossibility—and the Germans in their 'annoyance going as low as 34,000. The German officials, however, admit that 64,000 have accepted the option in a formal manner, and if we double this by adding the "deserters," and men who, though not liable to service, have departed silently, we shall pro- bably not be far wrong. This would be about a third of the number 'expelled by the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, a step precisely like the enforcement of the conscription, though dictated by a dif- ferent motive ; and the exiles will, no doubt, avenge themselves exactly as the Huguenots did, byspreading abroad over earth a pro- found horror of the Government which expatriated them. It may be that even now some quiet Alsatian is entering the French army wbo but for the expulsion would have been a civilian, and who brings to it that steady fire of German genius which was the one thing wanting to the losers in the recent war.
