The Days of a Ma?t [;i9i3 



not parliamentary was constitutional. Moreover, he 

 said: 



There is no question of Alsace-Lorraine: the country is 

 German by tradition, by language, and by conquest. Those 

 who do not like German rule are free to depart; the others 

 should be loyal Germans. Our trouble comes almost wholly 

 from French journalists. It will subside in time; fifty years 

 is a very long time in the life of a woman, a very short time 

 in that of a nation. 



And he showed with patriotic pride the vista of 

 fat Prussian buildings seen from his office window,- 

 the work of the German government. 



At Coimar Dcsccndiug ucxt at Colmar, we saw at the station 

 three clericals about to leave on a train. Thinking 

 that one of these might be the noted nationalist 

 leader, the Abbe Wetterle,^ to whom I had letters of 

 introduction, I asked them if they knew where the 

 Abbe could be found. The looks of arrant disgust 

 this question brought to their faces plainly showed 

 them to be "German-minded." 



Wetterii Wcttetle is a little man, frank and cordial in 



manner; I should certainly not take him for a "fire- 

 brand" (the mildest term the Germans applied to 

 him), though a French statue in his office revealed his 



Oncie sympathies. He introduced us to his friend, Jean 

 Jacques Walz, better known by the pseudonym of 

 " Hansi," or more often " Oncle Hansi" — an original, 

 restless spirit, a water-color artist of great skill, and 

 the author of stinging cartoons, the best I saw in 

 Europe. One which hung in his private studio repre- 

 sented Wetterle in jail, a slender figure peeping from 



1 Now (1920) a member of the French Chamber of Deputies. 



C 506 3 



Hansi 



( 



