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The Soul of the War by Philip Gibbs
page 27 of 449 (06%)
law. Their white faces had eyes like live coals. They thrust long thin
fingers through shaggy hair and spoke passionate orations nose to
nose. Their sluttish women shrieked with mirth and gave their kisses
to the leader of the gang, who had the face of Christ as painted by
Ary Scheffer.

It was in this interesting place, on the very velvet cushions where I
used to sit to watch the company, that Jaurès was killed on the eve of
the war. The veteran orator of French socialism, the man who could
stir the passions of the mob--as I had seen more than once--so that
at his bidding they would declare war against all the powers of
Government, was struck down as he sat with his back to an open
window divided from the street by a thin curtain. The young assassin
--a patriot he called himself--had been excited to an hysteria of hate
for a man who had tried to weaken the military power of France by
opposing the measure for a three years' service. It was the madness
of war which had touched his brain, and although Jaurès had called
upon the Socialists of France to march as one man in defence of "La
Patrie," this young neurasthenic made him the first victim of that
enormous sacrifice of blood which has since reeked up to God.
Jaurès, an honest man, perhaps, in spite of all his theatrical appeals
to mob passion--honest at least in his desire to make life more
tolerable for the sweated workers of France--was mortally wounded
by those shots through the window blind, and the crimson cushions of
his seat were dyed with deeper stains.


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