"Hast thou Stoupe's Religion des Hollandois?" he asked, with a sudden thought.
"Inquire elsewhere," snapped the bookseller surlily.
"Et tu, Brute!" said Spinoza, smiling. "Dost thou also join the hue and cry? Methinks heresy should nourish thy trade. A wilderness of counterblasts, treatises, tractlets, pasquinades—the more the merrier, eh?"
The bookseller stared. "Thou to come in and ask for Stoupe's book? 'Tis—'tis—brazen!"
Spinoza was perplexed. "Brazen? Is it because he talks of me in it?"
"Heer Spinoza," said the bookseller solemnly, "thy Cartesian commentary has brought me a many pence, and if thou thyself hast browsed more than bought, thou wast welcome to take whatever thou couldst carry away in that long head of thine. But to serve thee now is more than I dare, with the populace so wrought up against thee. What! Didst thou think thy doings in Utrecht would not penetrate hither?"
"My doings in Utrecht!"
"Ay, in the enemy's headquarters—betraying us to the periwigs!"
Spinoza was taken aback. This was even more serious than he had thought. It was for supposed leaning to the French that the De Witts had been massacred. Political odium was even more sinister than theological. Perhaps he had been unwise to accept in war-time the Prince of Condé's flattering invitation to talk philosophy. To get to the French camp with the Marshal's safe-conduct had been easy enough: to get back to his own headquarters bade fair to be another matter. But then why had the Dutch authorities permitted him to go? Surely such unique confidence was testimonial enough.
"Oh, but this is absurd!" he said. "Every burgher in Den Haag knows that I am a good republican, and have never had any aim but the honor and welfare of the State. Besides, I did not even see Condé. He had been called away, and I would not wait his return."