It condemned Sister
Valentine to "five years of hard labor and five years' deprivation of
civil rights."
_The War on the French Language_
The Germans never cease recalling and von Hertling has just repeated
the fact that eighty-seven per cent of the Alsatians speak German. It
is strange, then, that the German reign of terror has manifested
itself in one particular against the use of French, even in the region
where French is the language universally spoken.
The fact that a person speaks French has become a special offense,
that of "provocation." And this offense appears to be a frequent one.
On the twenty-second of February, 1916, the sous-prefect of Boulay
gave the following warning to the mayors of his arrondissement:
The use in public of French will be considered a
"provocation" when used by persons who know enough German
to make themselves understood or who can have recourse to
persons who understand German as intermediaries.
The War Council Extraordinary at Metz, in consequence handed down a
decision condemning two women to fourteen days in prison because, in a
manner that gave "provocation," they spoke French in a trolley car in
spite of the warnings of the conductress.
In addition, the War Council Extraordinary at Strassburg fined a
salesman who "not only let a French label remain on his packages, but
had put a French label on a package addressed to a customer who
understood German.
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