ABSTRACT
Few things are more remarkable than the way in which the earlier stages of the movement which was to exercise so enormous an influence over every branch of German life were overshadowed by the Eastern Question. Far from engaging the attention of Germany or of Europe as a whole, the French Revolution was, until the year 1791, regarded as a purely French concern, important to the rest of Europe only because it prevented France from taking her usual part in international politics. Of the many anomalies in the constitution of Germany in the 18th Century, the relations which existed between Alsace and the Empire were about the most remarkable. Germany was so very different from France, socially, politically and intellectually, that the ideas of the Revolution gained but little ground even in the more advanced parts of the country, and the influence which the Revolution exercised was one of reaction rather than of attraction.
