_Louis XIV annexing Alsace and not for one moment thinking of
forbidding the German language ..._
It was not until 1768 that the Monarchy thought of setting up schools
in Alsace, ‘where French is to be taught’. Vidal de la Blanche, who
relates this (_La France de l’Est_, 1, vi) adds: ‘This indifference
(to the language question) must not shock us too much. Let us rather
learn a lesson from it. It raises us above the narrowly jealous
conceptions which since then have set nation against nation, under this
language pretext. It takes us into an age when another spirit presided
over human relations. There was then no language question. Fortunate
eighteenth century, when war bred no lasting hatred, when the poison of
national animosities was not inoculated and fostered by all the means
now at the disposal of the State, including the schools.’ The eminent
historian forgets that the State has these means at its disposal, _with
the consent of the peoples_. The peoples, or at least the cultivated
classes among them, at the bidding of their men of letters, during the
past century have set themselves up arrogantly against one another in
their languages and cultures, even though they one day come face to
face with the unexpected results of this attitude, as is happening
to-day to France in its difficulties with Alsace.