‘Strasbourg,’ capital of the ‘lost province’ of Alsac, after the defeat of Prussia in 1870. From Marie de Grandmaison’s ‘Le Tour de France’ (1893) in which two brothers discover France on bicycles. Young Alstian migrants are saying goodbye to their sisters and girlfriends: “They are returning to French soil . . . so as to serve one day under the colours of the valiant fatherland.’ The picture of a compendium of
Alsatian emblems: the girls’ back bows, red skirts and large aprons, and tall steeple, the gabled houses and beer-drinkers. The flower is Alstian madder, which produced a red dye used for military uniforms.