Clerambault asked no one’s advice but as soon as he had written these pages he took them to the editor of a small socialist paper nearby.  He came back much relieved, as he thought: 

“That is off my mind.  I have spoken out, at last.”  But in the following night, a weight on his heart told him that the burden was still there, heavier than ever.  He roused himself.

“What have I done?”

He felt that he had been almost immodest to show his sacred sorrow to the public; and though he did not foresee the anger his article would provoke, he knew the lack of comprehension, the coarse comments, which are in themselves a profanation.

Days passed, and nothing happened.  Silence.  The appeal had fallen on the ear of an inattentive public, the publisher was little known, the pamphlet carelessly issued.  There are none so deaf as those who will not hear, and the few readers who were attracted by Clerambault’s name, merely glanced at the first lines, and threw it aside, thinking: 

“The poor man’s head has been turned by his sorrow,”—­a good pretext for not wishing to upset their own balance.

A second article followed, in which Clerambault took a final leave of the bloody old fetish falsely called Country; or rather in opposition to the great flesh-eater, the she-wolf of Rome, on whose altar men are now offered up, he set the august Mother of all living, the universal Country: 

TO HER WHOM WE HAVE LOVED

There can be nothing more bitter than to be parted from her whom one has loved.  I lacerate my own heart when I tear Country from it;—­dear, beautiful, and good, as she seemed!  There are some ardent lovers so blinded that they can forget all the joy and love of former days, and see only the change in the loved one, and the harm that she has done them.  If it were only possible for me to be like that!  But I cannot; it is impossible for me to forget.  I must see thee always as I loved thee, when I trusted, and saw in thee my guide and my best friend.—­Oh, my Country! why hast thou deserted and betrayed me?  If I were the only one to suffer, I could hide the sad disenchantment under the memory of my former affection; but I behold thy victims, these trusting devoted youths.—­I see myself in them, as I was.—­And how greatly thou hast deceived us!  Thine was as the voice of fraternal love, thou calledst us, that we might all be united, all brothers,—­no more isolation.  To each was lent the strength of millions of others, and we were taught to love our sky, our soil, and the work of our hands, that in them we should love each other more, for thy sake.  Now where have we been led?  Did we unite to increase, and grow stronger to hate and destroy?  We had known too much of these isolated hatreds in the past.  Each had his load of evil thoughts, but at least we knew them to be evil.  But now our souls are poisoned, since thou hast called these things sacred....