s well to cover up these crimes, or did they
refuse? If the question were one of a simple memorial, carrying with
it no abdication of conscience, this point would be without
importance, for it would simply mean that a list, however long, could
not bring together all the men of renown of a country, and omissions
would often have to be laid to chance. But here a venomous manifesto
was to be signed, made up of violent lies and of arbitrary theories;
and with this in mind one may see a meaning in certain abstentions.
Without any possible doubt they are the act of courageous men, who,
feeling deeply where the truth is, will not ally themselves against
it; and by their resistance they do it honor.]

Their great affair--and that of every thinking German--is to object,
when spoken to of their crimes, either that they were born of
necessity or that they did not take place. As against these
allegations, unsupported by any proof, the most formal denials have
officially been given. But to the latter we shall now add the true
description of the facts. And we think that, in spite of the power and
the dogmatic authority of its elite, the activity of its emissaries in
all parts of the world, and, finally, all its vast apparatus of
conquest--military and civil--Germany cannot long make its stand
against the humble little truth, which advances, noiselessly but also
fearlessly, with the tenacious light in its hand that it received from
Reality--from unquenchable and ardent Reality.

We come to you armed with the facts. It is only these unanswerable
witnesses that we have wished to oppose to the gratuitous affirmations
of our colleagues beyond the Rhine. We might have taken you into the
mazes of twenty frightful dramas, for _at every place where the German
troops have advanced they have trodden under foot the rights of
mankind and counted as nothing the civilization and the patrimony of
nations_. We have thought it wiser to limit ourselves to the relation
of certain events bearing the seal of certainty.

Not all the cities which may have suffered have as yet opened their
gates to our brothers. Not being able to collect authentic testimony
there we prefer, then, not to speak of them--for the moment. But in
all those evacuated by the enemy, commissions[7] have hurried to
ascertain the losses on the spot. It is from these legal examinations
that we have written this report, which, in impartial fashion, makes
you the judges.

[Footnote 7: