Note 98 — III The ‘Clerks’—The Great Betrayal

This expression (i.e. ‘la blague’) is Sorel’s (see Julien Benda, Les Sentiments de Critias, p. 258); and again (Reflexions sur la Violence, ch. ii): ‘You cannot sufficiently execrate those who teach the people that they should carry out some alleged superlatively idealistic injunction of a justice moving towards the future.’ Moreover, Sorel professes a similar hatred for those who preach this injunction to the bourgeoisie.