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 fire-sides 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.