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Updated: June 7, 2025
These were Moreau's views; he looked upon Clerambault's hope of social revolution as a certainty, and in the exhortation to win truth patiently step by step he heard an appeal to violent action which would conquer it at once. He introduced Clerambault to two or three groups of young intellectuals with revolutionary tendencies.
Even this was not all, and when he had poured out the bitterness of his heart and Clerambault's compassion encouraged him to speak further he got down to the worst of the trouble, which he and his comrades felt like a cancer that one does not dare to look at. Through his obscure, violent, and miserable talk, Clerambault at last made out what it was that tore the hearts of these young men.
Monsieur de Nangis, wishing to be assured of this, called on me one morning with a cantata of Clerambault's which he had transposed as he said, to suit his voice, and to which another bass was necessary, the transposition having rendered that of Clerambault impracticable. I answered, it required considerable labor, and could not be done on the spot.
The whole village knew that he was a boche before night; and every morning after that he could read it written up on his front door. Madame Clerambault's temper was not improved by this, and Rosine, who had taken to religion in the disappointment of her young love, was too much occupied with her unhappy soul and its experiences to think of the troubles of others.
In families that were sympathetic she distributed messages from liberal Europeans, among others, Clerambault's articles, though without his knowledge. It was a source of satisfaction when she saw that their hearts were touched. A greater joy still was to see that her son himself was transformed. Edmé Froment was not in the least a Tolstoyan pacifist.
Clerambault saw the cross over the newly-made mound, but he never knew if his lost friend had at least received his words of sympathy. It was better for him to remain in doubt, for the letters had never reached their destination; even this gleam of light had been denied to the poor old schoolmaster. The end of this summer in Berry was one of the most arid periods in Clerambault's life.
It was enough to understand; the tyrant has no claim to be loved. Clerambault's young friends were not sparing of their ideas, and it surprised them to see how little warmth he showed towards the new idol from the North: the rule of the proletariat. They had no timorous scruples or half-measures, they meant to make the world happy in their way perhaps not in its own.
In this seesaw Clerambault's lightly lyrical pages, where the attack on the idea of Country was made with caution, and the criticism covered up by devotion, would have been taken as a harmless platonic protestation.
Clerambault's appeal for reconciliation and pardon had no more violent opponents and it was the same everywhere. The tyranny of public opinion is an engine of oppression, invented by the modern State, and much more despotic than itself. In times of war certain women have proved, its most ferocious instruments.
Perrotin was rather short-sighted and selfish, and did not take the trouble to look carefully at things that were not necessary to him, being a closer observer of books than of faces, but he was none the less struck by the alteration in Clerambault's expression. "My dear friend," said he, "have you been ill?"
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