Of old, Alt Breisach, a rocky fortress with the river now on one side of it and now on the other--for in its inexperienced youth the Rhine never seems to have been quite sure of its way,--must, as a place of residence, have appealed exclusively to the lover of change and excitement.

Whoever the war was between, and whatever it was about, Alt Breisach was bound to be in it.

Everybody besieged it, most people captured it; the majority of them lost it again; nobody seemed able to keep it.

Whom he belonged to, and what he was, the dweller in Alt Breisach could never have been quite sure.

One day he would be a Frenchman, and then before he could learn enough French to pay his taxes he would be an Austrian.