The sight of this world in a fever-fit would have filled a sage with the desire to withdraw until the attack was over; but Clerambault was not a sage. He knew this, and he also knew that it was vain to speak; but none the less he felt that he must, that he should end by speaking. He wished to delay the dangerous moment, and his timidity, which shrank from single combat with the world, sought about him for a companion in thought. The fight would not be so hard if there were two or three together. + 

The first whose feeling he cautiously sounded were some unfortunate people who, like him, had lost a son. The father, a well-known painter, had a studio in the Rue Notre Dame des Champs. His name was Omer Calville and the Clerambaults were neighbourly with him and his wife, a nice old couple of the middle class, devoted to each other. They had that gentleness, common to many artists of their day, who had known Carrière, and caught remote reflections of Tolstoyism, which, like their simplicity, appeared a little artificial, for though it harmonised with their real goodness of heart, the fashion of the time had added a touch of exaggeration. + 

Those artists who sincerely profess their religious respect for all that lives, are less capable than anyone else of understanding the passions of war. The Calvilles had held themselves outside the struggle; they did not protest, they accepted it, without acquiescing, as one accepts sickness, death, or the wickedness of men, with a dignified sadness. + 

When Clerambault read them his burning poems they listened politely and made little response⁠—but strangely enough, at the very time that Clerambault, cured of his warlike illusions, turned to them, he found that they had changed places with him. The death of their son had produced on them the opposite effect. And now they were awkwardly taking part in the conflict, as if to replace their lost boy. They snuffed up eagerly all the stench in the papers, and Clerambault found them actually rejoicing, in their misery, over the assertion that the United States was prepared to fight for twenty years. + 

“What would become of France, of Europe, in twenty years?” he tried to say, but they hastily put this thought away from them with much irritation, almost as if it were improper to mention, or even to think of such a thing. + 

The question was to conquer; at what price? That could be settled afterwards.⁠—Conquer? Suppose there were no more conquerors left in France? Never mind, so long as the others are beaten. No, it should not be that the blood of their son had been shed in vain. + 

“And to avenge his death, must other innocent lives also be sacrificed?” thought Clerambault, and in the hearts of these good people he read the answer: “Why not?” The same idea was in the minds of all those who, like the Calvilles, had lost through the war what they held dearest⁠—a son, a husband, or a brother.⁠ ⁠… + 

“Let the others suffer as we have, we have nothing left to lose.” Was there nothing left? In truth there was one thing only, on which the fierce egotism of these mourners kept jealous guard; their faith in the necessity of these sacrifices. Let no one try to shake that, or doubt that the cause was sacred for which these dear ones fell. The leaders of the war knew this, and well did they understand how to make the most of such a lure. No, by these sad firesides there was no place for Clerambault’s doubts and feelings of pity. + 

“They had no pity on us,” thought the unhappy ones, “why should we pity them?” + 

Some had suffered less, but what characterised nearly all of these bourgeois was the reverence they had for the great slogans of the past: “Committee of Public Safety,” “The Country in Danger,” “Plutarch,” “De Viris,” “Horace,”⁠—it seemed impossible for them to look at the present with eyes of today; perhaps they had no eyes to see with. Outside of the narrow circle of their own affairs, how many of our anemic bourgeoisie have the power to think for themselves, after they have reached the age of thirty? It would never cross their minds; their thoughts are furnished to them like their provisions, only more cheaply. For one or two cents a day they get them from their papers. The more intelligent, who look for thought in books, do not give themselves the trouble to seek it also in life, and think that one is the reflection of the other. Like the prematurely aged, their members become stiff, and their minds petrified. + 

In the great flock of those ruminating souls who fed on the past, the group of bigots pinning its faith to the French Revolution was easily distinguished. Among the backward bourgeoisie they were reckoned incendiary in former days;⁠—about the time of the 16th of May, or a little later. Like quinquagenarians grown stolid and settled, they looked back with pride to their wild conduct, and lived on the memory of the emotions of bygone days. If their mirror showed them no change, the world had altered around them without their suspecting it, while they continued to copy their antiquated models. It is a curious imitative instinct, a slavery of the brain, to remain hypnotised by some point in the past, instead of trying to follow Proteus in his course⁠—the life of change. One picks up the old skin which the young snake has thrown off long ago, and tries to sew it together again. These pedantic admirers of old revolutions believe that those of the future will be made on the same lines. They will not see that the new liberty must have a gait of its own, and will overleap barriers before which its grandmother of ninety-three stopped, out of breath. They are also much more vexed by the disrespect of the young people who have gone by them, than they are by the spiteful yelping of the old whom they have left behind; this is only natural, for these young folks make them feel their age, and then it is their turn to yelp. + 

So it ever shall be; as they grow older there are very few men willing to let life take its own course, and who are generous enough to look at the future through the eyes of their juniors, as their own sight grows dim. The greater number of those who loved liberty in their youth, want to make a case of it now for the new broods, because they can no longer fly themselves. + 

The followers of the national revolutionary cult⁠—in the style of Danton, or of Robespierre⁠—were the bitterest adversaries of the internationalism of today; though they did not always agree perfectly amongst themselves, and the friends of Danton and Robespierre, with the shadow of the guillotine between them, hurled the epithet of heretic at each other with the deadliest threats. They did, however, all agree on one point, and devoted to destruction those who did not believe that Liberty is shot out of the mouth of cannon, those who dared to feel the same aversion towards violence, whether it was exerted by Caesar, Demos, or his satellites, or even if it was in the name of right and liberty itself. The face underneath is the same, no matter what mask may be worn. + 

Clerambault knew several of these fanatics, but there was no point in discussing with them whether the right, or its counterfeit, were only on one side in war; it would have been equally sensible to argue about the Holy Inquisition with a Manichee. Lay religions have their great seminaries and secret societies where they deposit their doctrinal treasures with great pride. He who departs from these is excommunicated⁠—until he in turn belongs to the past, when he becomes a god, and can excommunicate in future himself. + 

If Clerambault was not tempted to convert these hardened intellectuals with their stiff helmet of truth, he knew others who had not the same proud certainty; far from it. Those who sinned rather through softness and pure dilettantism⁠—Arsène Asselin was one of these, an amiable Parisian, unmarried, a man of the world, clever and sceptical; and as much shocked by a defect in sentiment as in expression. How could he like extremes of thought, which are the cultures in which the germs of war develop? His critical and sarcastic spirit inclined him towards doubt; so there was no reason why he should not have understood Clerambault’s point of view, and he came within an ace of doing so. His choice depended on some fortuitous circumstances, but from the moment that he turned his face in the other direction, it was impossible for him to go back; and the more he stuck in the mud, the more obstinate he grew. French self-respect cannot bear to admit its mistakes; it would rather die in defence of them.⁠ ⁠… But French or not, how many are there in the world who would have the strength of mind to say: “I have made a mistake, we must begin all over again.” Better deny the evidence⁠ ⁠… “To the bitter end”⁠ ⁠… And then break down. + 

Alexandre Mignon was a before-the-war pacifist and an old friend of Clerambault’s. He was a bourgeois of about his own age, intellectual, a member of the University, and justly respected for the dignity of his life. He should not be confounded with those parlour pacifists covered with official decorations and grand cordons of international orders, for whom peace is a gilt-edged investment in quiet times. For thirty years he had sincerely denounced the dangerous intrigues of the dishonest politicians and speculators of his country; he was a member of the League for the Rights of Man, and loved to make speeches for either cause, as it might happen. It was enough if his client purported to be oppressed; it did not matter if the victim had been a would-be oppressor himself. His blundering generosity sometimes made him ridiculous, but he was always liked. He did not object to the ridicule, nor did he dread a little unpopularity, as long as he was surrounded by his own group, whose approbation was necessary to him. As a member of a group which was independent when they all held together, he thought that he was an independent person, but this was not the case. Union is strength they say, but it accustoms us to lean upon it, as Alexandre Mignon found to his cost. + 

The death of Jaurès had broken up the group; and lacking one voice⁠—the first to speak⁠—all the others failed. They waited for the password that no one dared to give. When the torrent broke over them these generous but weak men were uncertain, and were carried away by the first rush. They did not understand nor approve of it, but they could make no resistance. From the beginning desertions began in their ranks, produced largely by the terrible speechmakers who then governed the country⁠—demagogue lawyers, practised in all the sophistries of republican idealogy: “War for Peace, Lasting Peace at the End⁠ ⁠…” (Requiescat)⁠ ⁠… In these artifices the poor pacifists saw a way to get out of their dilemma; it was not a very brilliant way and they were not proud of it, but it was their only chance. They hoped to reconcile their pacific principles with the fact of violence by means of “big talk” which did not sound to them as outrageous as it really was. To refuse would have been to give themselves up to the warlike pack, which would have devoured them. + 

Alexandre Mignon would have had courage to face the bloody jaws if he had had his little community at his back, but alone it was beyond his strength. He let things go at first, without committing himself, but he suffered, passing through agonies something like those of Clerambault, but with a different result. He was less impulsive and more intellectual. In order to efface his last scruples he hid them under close reasoning, and with the aid of his colleagues he laboriously proved by a + b that war was the duty of consistent pacifism. His League had every advantage in dwelling on the criminal acts of the enemy; but did not dwell on those in its own camp. Alexandre Mignon had occasional glimpses of the universal injustice; an intolerable vision, on which he closed his shutters.⁠ ⁠… + 

In proportion as he was swaddled in his war arguments, it became more difficult for him to disentangle himself, and he persisted more and more. Suppose a child carelessly pulls off the wing of an insect; it is only a piece of nervous awkwardness, but the insect is done for, and the child ashamed and irritated, tears the poor creature to pieces to relieve his own feelings. + 

The pleasure with which he listened to Clerambault’s mea culpa may be imagined; but the effect was surprising. Mignon, already ill at ease, turned on Clerambault, whose self-accusations seemed to point at him, and treated him like an enemy. In the sequel no one was more violent than Mignon against this living remorse. + 

There were some politicians who would have understood Clerambault better, for they knew as much as he did and perhaps more; but it did not keep them awake at night. They had been used to mental trickery ever since they cut their first teeth, and were expert at combinazione; they had the illusion of serving their party, cheaply gained by a few compromises here and there!⁠ ⁠… To think and walk straightforwardly was the one thing impossible to these flabby shufflers, who backed, or advanced in spirals, who dragged their banner in the mud, by way of assuring its triumph, and who, to reach the Capitol, would have crawled up the steps on their stomachs. + 

Here and there some clear-sighted spirits were hidden, but they were easier to guess at than to see; they were melancholy glowworms who had put out their lanterns in their fright, so that not a gleam was visible. They certainly had no faith in the war, but neither did they believe in anything against it;⁠—fatalists, pessimists all. + 

It was clear to Clerambault that when personal energy is lacking, the highest qualities of head and heart only increase the public servitude. The stoicism which submits to the laws of the universe prevents us from resisting those which are cruel, instead of saying to destiny: “No, thus far, and no farther!”⁠ ⁠… If it pushes on you will see the stoic stand politely aside, as he murmurs: “Please come in!”⁠—Cultivated heroism, the taste for the superhuman, even the inhuman, chokes the soul with its sacrifices, and the more absurd they are, the more sublime they appear⁠—Christians of today, more generous than their Master, render all to Caesar; a cause seems sacred to them from the moment that they are asked to immolate themselves to it. To the ignominy of war they piously kindle the flame of their faith, and throw their bodies on the altar. The people bend their backs, and accept with a passive, ironic resignation.⁠ ⁠… “No need to borrow trouble.” Ages and ages of misery have rolled over this stone, but in the end stones do wear down and become mud. + 