Note 8 — Chapter XVIII · THE COLLABORATORS: (CONTINUED)

This is what we need at the head of the seventh chapter of the second volume of the Souvenirs. Especially coming after what has gone before them, these few lines shed a more brilliant light upon Fabre’s secret attitude toward those very thinkers whose ideas he opposes most keenly than could any number of lectures. We have here the practical exemplification of that beautiful profession of faith inspired by Saint Augustine, which he has recorded elsewhere: “I wage war boldly upon those ideas that I believe untrue: but God preserve me from ever doing so upon those who maintain them.”8