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.

In the great flock of those ruminating souls who fed on the past, the
group of bigots pinning its faith to the French Revolution was easily
distinguished. Among the backward _bourgeoisie_ they were reckoned
incendiary in former