“The Republic or death,” said Clerambault ironically.  “And this is a free country?  Free, yes, because there have always been, and always will be some souls like mine, which refuse to bend to a yoke which their conscience disavows.  We are become a nation of tyrants.  There was no great advantage in taking the Bastille.  In the old days one ran the risk of perpetual imprisonment if one made so bold as to differ from the Prince—­the fagot, if you did not agree with the Church; but now you must think with forty millions of men and follow them in their frantic contradictions.  One day you must scream:  “Down with England!” Tomorrow it will be:  “Down with Germany!” and the next day it may be the turn of Italy; and da capo in a week or two.  Today we acclaim a man or an idea, tomorrow we shall insult him; and anyone who refuses risks dishonour—­or a pistol bullet.  This is the most ignoble and shameful servitude of all!...  By what right do a hundred, a thousand, one or forty millions of men, demand that I shall renounce my soul?  Each of them has one, like mine.  Forty millions of souls together often make only one, which has denied itself forty millions of times....  I think what I think.  Go you and do likewise.  The living truth can be re-born only from the equilibrium of opposing thoughts.  To make the citizen respect the city, it must be reciprocal; each has his soul.  It is his right and his first duty is to be true to it....  I have no illusions, and in this world of prey I do not attribute an exaggerated importance to my own conscience, but however small we may be or little we may do, we must exist.  We are all liable to err, but deceived or not, a man should be sincere; an honest mistake is not a lie, but a stage on the road to truth.  The real lie is to fear the truth and try to stifle it.  Even if you were a thousand times right, if you resort to force to crush a sincere mistake, you commit the most odious crime against reason itself.  If reason is persecutor, and error persecuted, I am for the victim, for error has rights as well as truth....  Truth—­the real truth, is to be always seeking what is true, and to respect the efforts of those who suffer in the pursuit.  If you insult a man who is striving to hew out his path, if you persecute him who wishes, and perhaps fails, to find less inhuman roads for human progress, you make a martyr of him.  Your way is the best, the only one, you say?  Follow it then, and let me follow mine.  I do not oblige you to come with me, so why are you angry?  Are you afraid lest I should prove to be in the right?”

The impression left on Clerambault’s mind by his last interview with Perrotin, was one of sadness and pity; but on the whole he decided to go again to see him, having by now arrived at a better understanding of his ironical and prudent attitude towards the world.  If he had retained but small esteem for Perrotin’s character, on the other hand the great intelligence of the old scholar continued to command his highest admiration; he still saw in him a guide towards the light.