If he had been less misted, he would not have unmasked
them.
Thus the brave-man-in-spite-of-himself set off like Oedipus for the
fight with the Sphinx, Country, who awaited him at the crossroads.
Bertin's attack drew the attention of several politicians to
Clerambault; they belonged to the extreme Left, and found it difficult
to conciliate the opposition to the Government--their reason for
existence--with the Sacred Union formed against the enemies' invasion.
They republished the first two articles in a socialist paper which was
then balancing itself between contradictions; opposing the war, and at
the same time voting for credits. You could see in its pages eloquent
statements of internationalism side by side with the appeals of
ministers who were preaching a nationalist policy. 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.
Unfortunately, the teeth of censure had fastened themselves upon some
phrases, with the tenacity of ants; they might have escaped notice in
the general distraction of thought, if it had not been for this.
In the article addressed "_To Her whom We have Loved_," the word
country appears the first time coupled with an invocation to love.
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