the story,"the last lesson",takes the reader back to the franco-prussian war and the capture of alsace and lorraine by the prussians.describe this transition as seen through the eyes of a young boy,franz.

Initially for young Franz the passing on of the French districts of Alsace and Lorraine into Prussian hands was not much of consequence. For him it was like any other warm and bright day, when the birds were chirping at the edge of the woods that was much more tempting than a day at school. On his way to school, he passed the town hall where a crowd had accumulated in front of the bulletin-board. For the past two years all their bad news had come from there — the lost battles, the draft, the orders of the commanding officer — and he wondered as to what could be the matter for the crowd there. It was only when he reached school and became aware that it was their last French class did the realisation come what the transition meant for them all. It was like a slap that he hardly knew how to write his own language and he would never learn anything more because the order had come from Berlin that only German was to be taught in the schools of Alsace and Lorraine. And this was a result of the capture of Alsace and Lorraine by the Prussians. The last lesson as read by M. Hamel suddenly seemed very easy to him and when the latter gave them new copies written in a beautiful round hand— France, Alsace, France, Alsace, those words looked like little flags floating everywhere in the school-room, hung from the rod at the top of their desks.