ss.... "There
are no enemies...." and Clerambault entered into the peace of the
worlds to come.

Seeing that he had lost consciousness, his friends carried him into
Froment's house which was close by; but he was dead before they
reached it.

They laid him on a bed, in a room beside that in which the young
paralytic lay with his friends now gathered round him. The door
remained open. The spirit of the dead man seemed near them.

Moreau spoke bitterly of the absurdity of this murder; why not strike
one of the great pirates of the triumphant reaction, or a recognised
head of the revolutionary group? Why choose this inoffensive,
unbiassed man, who was kind to everyone, and almost too comprehending
to all sides?

"Hatred makes no mistakes," said Edme Froment. "It has been guided
by a sure instinct to the right mark; for an enemy often sees more
clearly than a friend. No, there is no doubt about it, the most
dangerous adversary of society and the established order in this world
of violence, falsehood, and base compromises, is, and has always been,
the man of peace and a free conscience. The crucifixion of Jesus was
no accident; He had to be put to death. He would be executed today;
for a great evangelist is a revolutionary, and the most radical of
all. He is the inaccessible source from whence revolutions break
through the hard ground, the eternal principle of non-submission of
the spirit to Caesar, no matter who he may be--the unjust force. This
explains the hatred of those servants of the State, the domesticated
peoples, for the insulted Christ who looks at them in silence, and
also for His disciples, for us, the eternal insurrectionists, the
conscientious objectors to tyranny from high or low, to that of today
or tomorrow ... for us, who go before One greater than ourselves, who
comes bringing to the world the Word of salvation, the Master laid
in the grave but '_qui sera en agonie jusqu' a la fin du monde_,'[1]
whose suffering will endure to the world's end, the unfettered
Spirit, the Lord of all." [Footnote 1: The quotation is from Pascal.
(Author.)]

SIERRE, 1916--PARIS, 1920.

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