People who have obstinate views on the political meaning of wars, on the eminently economic nature of the peril that has been run by humanity, and on the efficacy of the industrial and scientific civilization, will not fail to proclaim that France ought first of all to return to its furious task and apply itself to surpassing the peoples that have outstripped it along this path.
But France has always been the country of initiation and revelation. It is the chosen land of spiritual revolutions. May the bloody baptism it has received give it precedence in the discussion of the future!
Do you wish it to lose the glorious rank it holds in the moral order, at the head of the nations, that it may fall in line behind the peoples who are enslaved by automatism and swear allegiance to a worn-out, condemned, bankrupt social and economic religion?
If the destiny of our country is to make a humanity that is plunged in affliction give ear to the words of peace, consolation and love, let it accomplish this beautiful mission, let it teach the other peoples the generous laws of the true possession of the world.
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My work is finished, and now the time has come for me to part with it.
It is going off into this misty autumn night. My heart is both glad and sorrowful.
It is going away from me, henceforth to follow a destiny of its own that will no longer depend only upon my love.
I shall turn to other duties, I shall assume other cares. A voice tells me that they will always be the same duties, the same cares, and that there is no longer but one great task for men, one single task with a hundred radiant aspects.
It is late. The night is drawing to a close; it is calm and yet penetrated with a vast, subdued murmur of joy. They say it is one of the last nights of the war.