It was 2010 in Sydney. I was organising a literary club – a French book club – on the premises of my French language centre ‘French Moments’. I had come up with the idea of asking my English-speaking readers to read a book that wasn’t too complicated and that they could relate to. I chose L’Ami Fritz, which all Alsatians know… at least by name!
This 1864 novel by Erckmann-Chatrian appealed to my Australian students. It was an opportunity for me to talk about beautiful Alsace.
However, an impromptu question from Debbie changed my perception of the book:
“Pierre, tell me, doesn’t the story of Ami Fritz really take place in Alsace?
Shocking revelation: is the Ami Fritz not from Alsace?
She had thrown me. I was at a loss. My adopted Alsatian heart was palpitating. But how could it?
Would this lovely story, whose hero is a good-natured man who loves friendship as much as white wine, not take place in Alsace? … Could it be Belgium? Or Switzerland? In Luxembourg? Germany?!
That’s when you realise you’ve been scorned and deceived all these years.
The French teachers at my collège lied to us!
Or maybe they had no idea what Erckmann-Chatrian had in mind.
Let me present the authors, Erckmann-Chatrian, to you: Émile Erckmann (1822-1899) and Alexandre Chatrian (1826-1890). These two French writers, born in Lorraine, used a collective pseudonym from 1847 to 1887. But Émile Erckmann’s childhood travels led him to describe the fair homeland of Ami Fritz so beautifully.
So, to return to Debbie’s comment, my natural curiosity led me to discover more. So what was this beautiful country where Ami Fritz and his gang of friends lived, not forgetting the beautiful Suzel?
The Story of Ami Fritz
For those who don’t know the plot, here’s a summary (without giving away the ending!)
Fritz Kobus is a good man, a bon vivant and heir to his father, who was a justice of the peace in his beloved little town of Hunebourg. He enjoys meeting up with his friends at the Grand-Cerf Brasserie.
Because he doesn’t have to work, Fritz thinks he’s free from the worries of marriage… a philosophy not shared by his father’s best friend, Rabbi David.
Rabbi David never misses an opportunity to introduce Fritz to the prettiest widows in the area. But one fine day, he came face to face with the beautiful young Suzel, daughter of his Anabaptist tenant farmer. This was love at first sight in Hunebourg!
Admittedly, the story lacks suspense; you shouldn’t expect too many twists and turns.
But it’s fun to read this story about a small world living in the middle of the 19th century: farmers, innkeepers, tax collectors, middle-class people, war veterans… as well as Catholics, Protestants, Anabaptists, Jews and gipsies.
They all live together in a climate of mutual respect and understanding. It’s both touching and cheerful.
In fact, in the book, only the poor Prussians get the short end of the stick!
So, where is this Fritz-Land?
The author of a well-researched article on Fritz-Land put me on the right track: Baron de la Chaise and his remarkable work date back to 1936. The book is entitled La part de l’influence germanique dans l’œuvre d’Erckmann-Chatrian.
First of all, he wasn’t the only one to wonder about the actual location of Fritz-Land. Many assumed that the story took place in Alsace.
In the minds of many Alsatians and Moselle residents, Hunebourg would be Phalsbourg, Saverne, Marlenheim or even Wissembourg.
Baron de la Chaise was not one to shy away from the idea, and he swept all these hypotheses under the carpet by delving into the history of Alsace.
The Baron was as clever as they come because you must always look at things in context. Here, of course, the context is historical. Let’s now present the condensed result of his research.
About Hunebourg
Ami Fritz and his friends live in a small fictional town called Hunebourg.
In the book, we learn that Hunebourg once had a Capuchin convent. The nuns abandoned their cellar in 1793 when the French arrived. But the grandfather (of l’Ami Fritz) was lucky enough to save 2 or 300 bottles. Protecting the things that are most precious to us is always essential!
So, how do you explain the arrival of the French when Alsace (except Mulhouse) was French at the time of the Revolution? Is this historical nonsense?
In any case, it’s not like Erckmann-Chatrian to be wrong!
Also, in the book, Hunebourg had a cavalry barracks in the service of Frederick Wilhelm.
Was he Ludwig Otto Friedrich Wilhelm von Wittelsbach, otherwise known as Ludwig II of Bavaria?
This king is best known for having built a Sleeping Beauty castle, Neuschwanstein, in Bavaria.
At the town gate, a beggar crouched with flat hair and pistol-barrel sideburns: he was a former soldier of Napoleon’s Empire, known as der Frantzose (the Frenchman)…
All these clues leave no doubt: we are in Germany and probably in the region of Landau in the Palatinate.
The Palatinate
The Palatinate? It’s a region between Wissembourg and Mont-Tonnerre (Donnersberg), formerly known as Nordgau (with the north of Alsace, as opposed to Sundgau in the south).
It is also sometimes referred to as German Alsace, i.e. the historical part of Alsace that did not remain French after 1815.
The following map I drew for this article clearly shows the geographical continuity between Alsace and the Palatinate.
When Alsace and the Palatinate shared the same culture
This similarity of scenery and existence between Alsace and the Palatinate in 1840 should come as no surprise.
At the time, there was no clear distinction between the two countries. There was not, nor had there ever been, the clear-cut difference between Alsace and the Palatinate that today’s border between Wissembourg and Lauterbourg represents.
There were indeed borders of all kinds, but not today’s rigid, linear borders. Erckmann-Chatrian’s story takes place when nationalities were not clearly defined, and people lived according to their old ways.
In reality – and this is where the confusion comes from – the setting for Ami Fritz is, in addition to Lower Alsace, a region that extends northwards.
Geographically, it’s the same region of wooded massifs, a geological continuation of the Northern Vosges.
When it crossed the border at Wissembourg, it only changed its name: the high wooded hills are now called Haardt or Pfalz (Palatinate).
Fritz the Bavarian!
The characters in the book are not shy about making the most of Old Germany.
But in 1840, the Palatinate was no longer French but Bavarian. Erckmann-Chatrian faithfully expressed this new orientation.
Take, for example, the passage in the book where Ami Fritz offers his friends in Bischem a sumptuous lunch washed down with Champagne.
It’s all very well to say,” exclaimed Schoultz, “that the French have good things at home! What a pity that their Champagne, Burgundy and Bordeaux are not on the right bank of the Rhine!
Neither French nor Prussian
Schoultz,” said Han gravely, “you don’t know what you’re asking for: just think that if these countries were ours, they (the French) would come and take them. It would be a different kind of extermination than for their Liberty and Equality because the French, who are always talking about great principles, sublime ideas and noble sentiments, are all about solidity. While the English always want to protect the human race… the French constantly rectify a line: sometimes it leans too far to the right, and sometimes it leans too far to the left: they call this their natural limits.
As for the fat pastures, vineyards, meadows and forests that lie between these lines, that’s the least of their worries: they only hold on to their ideas of justice and geometry, and God forbid that we should have a piece of Champagne in Saxony or Mecklenburg; their natural limits would soon cross over to that side! Let’s buy them a few bottles of good wine instead and keep our balance. Old Germany likes tranquillity, so it invented equilibrium…
The Prussians are taking a beating!
As for the people of Berlin (the Prussians), the Palatines of 1840 held them in deep contempt: they were brutal men, savages from the depths of Pomerania, a people full of boastfulness and brutality…
The Prussians were seen as starving invaders from north-east Germany:
A bunch of glorious people,” says Hâan, “who look over their shoulders at us Bavarians… so don’t talk to me about these Prussians, poor devils who don’t have ten thalers in their pockets! […] They say Prussia is the German homeland: we should wring their necks!
Erckmann and Old Germany
Erckmann lived as a child in a country that was French at heart but still steeped in the relics of old Germany. He began writing in 1845, at a time when the troubadour style and the passion for the Germany of legends reigned supreme in specific literary genres.
Influenced by German-style fantasy tales, the author faithfully described the character traits he had found along the way:
- The Alsatians, loyal subjects of France, were often still asleep in the secular habits of the past.
- The Palatines, of no particular nationality, were citizens of peaceful old Germany.
- The gipsies and pedlars, with no homeland, were still asleep.
The Disappearance of Old Germany
For Erckmann, in literary, political and sentimental terms, had until then nurtured the illusion of the durability of a patriarchal, sentimental and dreamy Old Germany, more attached to Peace and harmony between peoples than to subtle distinctions between nationalities.
In short, it was a Germany that was a leaven of peace in Europe, the Germany that Alsatian forefathers loved.
The time of Erckmann’s Ami Fritz was to end abruptly with the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
The appearance of militaristic Prussia on the European scene shook the peaceful land of legend and led all the Peoples of Germany to attack France.
This war tore Alsace and Moselle from France, and Erckmann had lovingly noted every nuance of their thinking. In 1870-71, the Ami Fritz’s concept of Old Germany disappeared forever.
Fritz-land, then, is located in …
As you will have gathered, Ami Fritz’s good country is not in Alsace but in the Palatinate… in a fictitious town (Hunebourg) that could be somewhere between Wissembourg and Landau.
At the time, the Bavarians governed the Palatinate, while Alsace was French. But as we have learned from Baron de la Chaise’s research, these two peoples were culturally close.
Indeed, they were the same until the tragedy of the Franco-Prussian War. Prussia’s growing influence over the German lands ended Old Germany.
That said, Alsace has managed to reclaim Ami Fritz. Our folk hero is a cultural icon of the region.
Several towns and villages have a winstub bearing the name of Ami Fritz. The small town of Marlenheim (the northern gateway to the Wine Route) celebrates the wedding of Ami Fritz and Suzel with great pomp and ceremony.
And finally…
I hope this longer-than-life article has inspired you to read this book celebrating all there is to discover and love about Alsace (and the Palatinate!).
If you’re visiting northern Alsace, I highly recommend setting aside a day to discover the Palatinate.
The Deutsche Weinstraße (German Wine Route) winds through the Palatinate vineyards from Wissembourg to Bockenheim an der Weinstraße. Approximately 85 kilometres long, the tourist route passes through the region’s main wine-growing towns: Bad Bergzabern, Landau, Edenkoben, Neustadt and Bad Dürkheim.
The particular resemblance to the Alsace wine route will strike you.
To order the book L’Ami Fritz, here’s the (affiliate) link on Amazon.