utside the circle of ideas.
It might as well have been applied to Germany, England, or ancient
Rome, as to the France of today. To tell the truth, like nine-tenths
of his class and profession, he was ignorant of the political facts
about which he declaimed, so that his trumpetings could hardly disturb
the leaders of the day. In the midst of the tumult of the press,
the noisy passage of arms between Clerambault and Bertin had two
consequences; in the first place it forced Clerambault to play with
more care, and choose a less slippery ground than logomachy, and on
the other it brought him in contact with men better informed as to the
facts who furnished him with the necessary information. A short
time before there had been formed in France a little society,
semi-clandestine, for independent study and free criticism on the war,
and the causes that had led up to it. The Government, always vigilant
and ready to crush any attempt at freedom of thought, nevertheless
did not consider this society dangerous. Its members were prudent and
calm, men of letters before all, who avoided notoriety, and contented
themselves with private discussion; it was thought better policy to
keep them under observation, and between four walls.

These calculations proved to be wrong, for truth modestly and
laboriously discovered, though known only to five or six, cannot be
uprooted; it will spring from the earth with irresistible force.
Clerambault now learned for the first time of the existence of these
passionate seekers after truth, who recalled the times of the Dreyfus
case. In the general oppression, their apostolate behind closed doors
took on the appearance of a little early-Christian group in the
catacombs. Thanks to them, he discovered the falsehoods as well as the
injustices of the "Great War." He had had a faint suspicion of them,
but he had not dreamed how far the history that touches us most
closely had been falsified, and the knowledge revolted him. Even in
his most critical moments, his simplicity would never have imagined
the deceptive foundations on which reposes a Crusade for the Right,
and as he was not a man to keep his discovery to himself, he
proclaimed it loudly, first in articles which were forbidden by the
censor, and then in the shape of sarcastic apologues, or little
symbolic tales, touched with irony. The Voltairian apologues slipped
through sometimes, owing to the inattention of the censor, and in this
way Clerambault w