THREE SUNDAYS

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 50, 22 November 1930, Page 9

THREE SUNDAYS

Mouterhouse Celebrates LIFE IN ALSATIA A Feudal Conscience (By Gordon S. Troup.) Mouterhouse is a little French village on the confines of Alsace and Lorraine, and only ten miles from the German frontier. It has a prosperous past, a stolid, stoical present, and a dubious future. It seems to have gained its name “motherhouse” from being the feudal seat of the de Dietrich family in the old days. The foothills of the Vosges offered water power for elementary manufactures, and a great forge was hollowed out of the hillside to do the heavy work which the villagers could not do in their homes. Its brick chimney sticking up through the hilltop is a monument to the heyday of Mouterhouse’s prosperity. Then came the machine age, and new workshops sprang ' up beside the old forge. The railway came near Mouterhouse, but made a circuit to avoid the heavy grades. De Dietrich family became de Dietrich Company, and moved its works out on the the main line. But the family retained a sense of responsibility for the welfare of the old employees and their descendants. To keep them in work, and enable them to live in their old surroundings, by hill and stream, away from the smoke, it kept a certain amount of work going in the,old shops; it built a light railway to carry goods to and from the main line, and also to convey the workers, morning and evening, to and from the new factories; all of which cannot have paid the company, but was dictated by the feudal conscience of the family. A Three-class Train. Even the little train is free from many of the taints of industrialism. It has three classes: fourth is for the workers, third is for tourists and ordinary visitors, and a splendid second class compartment, usually kept locked, is reserved for the de Dietrichs and their honoured guests. There is no first. The engines, two in number, are trusty links between past and present. No. 1 has in gleaming brass two historic dates: 1690, not the date of construction but of the birth of the famous Jean de Dietrich, whose name it bears, and 1870, the year when it was actually built. No. 2 is a garish modern affair built as recently as 1882. Men and children, dogs and even poultry stalk serenely across the rails in ft—-t of these locomotives, fume they never so blackly, for they cannot conceal their air of benign and faithful old warhorses. And every Saturday afternoon, with a hiss and a skirl, the little train draws into Mouterhouse, the engine is put away under lock and key for the week-end, while from the carriages a little stream of workers overflows the various doorsteps, leaving thereon a male sediment, also for the week-end, unless something unusual occurs to tempt them forth. National Fete Day. This year’s 14th of July, or “fete nationale,” fell on a Monday, making for a long week-end. In Paris, from Saturday clear through till Tuesday, there was the usual dancing in the streets and full-dress military review, there were illuminated buildings and fireworks —oratorio as well as pyrotechnic. Strasbourg, where the Mayor and corporation are Communistic, observed a Sabbath calm for three days. Mouterhouse took a middle course between these extremes, and celebrated on Sunday evening, keeping Monday as a Sabbath. As darkness came down, the far end of the single street began to glow with moving lights, and in the tavern- half the baud seemed to be arguing, while half practised, but the results were much the same in either case. Preparations continue for nearly an hour, until the band emerges and goes four-deep down the street, in white yachting caps and Sunday suits, while the lights steady down and come up to meet them. As they approach, to the strains of the “Marseillaise’’ and various folk-songs, the lights turn out to be Chinese lanterns on poles, carried by the combined children of the Catholic and Protestant schools of the village. A keen young schoolmaster has recently arrived and has organised them, to show how July 14 should be celebrated. Let us fall into step with the majority of the band, and join the adults of the village behind the children. The women have kerchiefs on their heads; the men who have any distinctive caps, wear them. The postman is a notable figure, also the engine-driver and fireman, and forest ranger, thanks to their distinctive caps, and one can see those who did their military service in the French Army, and who in the German. The procession winds round to the mayor's house, and the children and the band serenade him. Then the children are marched round to a vantage-point, the adults form up behind them, and all are treated to a stirring fireworks display. Each rocket evokes its inevitable chorus of “Oohsl”: but the voices sound listless: perhaps the children are tired by this time, for it is late. Sometimes the rocket misfires and the “Ooh!” conies forth prematurely, as if forced. When the last shot has been fired, old and young go stolidly home, the very old and young to bed. while the rest recover enough enthusiasm to dance till morning. ’ ’ Midsummer Festival. T! j next Sunday is the midsummer festival of the village, celebrated on a green plateau half a mile out, adjoining the Protestant cemetery. The band starts out jauntily ; but it is too soon after dinner, and it gives out half way up the hill. A motor-lorry with a full cargo sets off along the road, and the riotous clinking from its cargo puts new heart into the players, who gain the platform set up for them on the green, and fall to playing right cheerily. The lorry discharges beer and sausages to delight the hearts of all good Alsatians, and a bowling alley and a shooting gallery give the “lads” a chance to show off. From time to time a member, of the band beckons to a friend in the crowd, passes his instrument over to him. and goes to dance or, sausage and beer-mug in hand, sit out with one of the girls similarly equipped. The substitute musicians do almost as well as the regular players—it is an enthusiastic, not a tuneful, band. The word goes round that the Mayor is going to dance with the lady who keeps the store, and most of the people stop to watch them. The dances are so old-fashioned as to have become ultra-modern in the whirligig of such fashions; one hugs tightly; one looks serious ; one lounges rhythmically. New Priest's First Service. The celebration of the following Sunday is by far the most enthusiastic of them all. One of the sons of the village has been'ordained as a priest, and is conducting his first service in the village where he was brought up. Already, on arriving from the train the night before, he has been given a royal reception. Green arches of shrubs from the forest were set up on the road before each bouse in the village, and ns he passed under these arches a squad of young men let off salvo after salvo of blank cartridges till he reached the presbytery. Now once more, while the bells peal from the church, more salutes are being fired from the churchyard. As we go in we pass n group of boys who. for their nir of sheepishly conscious importance. might be a New Zealand junior Bible class waiting till all hands were present in order to file into the front pew together. But here something more exciting is afoot. Presently, during the service, their turn will come to handle guns and ammunition. The church holds over two hundred people and it is full to the donrs, men nnd boys on the right

half, women and girls in the left; and sure enough, when the mass reaches its most solemn moment, the perfect calm is shattered by deafening detonations from outside. Later, from the body of the church, forty or fifty people file up to kiss the hand of the new priest. They are all relatives, near or distant, and as they reach the altar, the salvoes are redoubled, so that the old parish priest lias to slip out by a side door and bid the enthusiastic gunners not to overdo it. There are two sermons and three collections, and then a splendid luncheon, to which many remain. The service itself lasted two hours, and there indeed one had the sense of a whole community fully united, and finding full expression for their loyalty and aspiration Earlv on Sunday night, the village is dark and peaceful. All too soon, at tc past five next morning, comes the wain ing whistle of the little train. gine driver, who knows his cliei .. especially the late ones, watches J till tn last laggard has clattered ™ h e ■T c T nb M whistles: off m his three cars of factory hands to begin another week’s work.