began in their ranks, produced largely by the terrible speech-makers 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 war-like 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 glow-worms 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.