The Alsatian railways were reorganized and provided with a staff of German officials.
From the first moment Goethe set foot in the narrow streets of the Alsatian capital, in April 1770, the whole current of his thought seemed to change.
Another factor of importance in Goethe's Strassburg life was his love for Friederike Brion, the daughter of an Alsatian village pastor in Sesenheim.
Born in Ireland in 1833, she was educated in Paris, and in 1848 married a rich Alsatian named Solms; but the princepresident refused to recognize her, and in 1852 she was expelled from Paris.
He wrote a small book of memoirs of this campaign, Allemands et francais (1871), in which he spoke of the conquerors without bitterness; this attitude was all the more praiseworthy as his mother was an Alsatian, and he was unable to resign, himself to the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.