Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/17

 when he stood for the sacredness of treaties in the Morocco time, the Chamber tried to shout him down; when he sought to turn Europe from war, Nationalist and Clerical joined their voices to besmirch his reputation and to bury him deep under popular prejudice; he threw his constituency away because he would not desert the soul of his France—the France of the Revolution, the France of human liberty, the France he loved and which he saw misled and betrayed by those in authority. All this is written in this book. But the end is not written here, and cannot yet be written. What secret did he take to the grave with him? What would he have done had he lived? Of that we can but conjecture.

There are many rumours about regarding his death. It is said that his assassin cannot be brought to trial because inconvenient revelations would then have to be made; it is said that papers which the authorities tried to seize after his death are in safe keeping in Switzerland; Rappoport has given an account of a conversation Jaurès had with journalists on the day of his murder which if true (and that has been in a measure disputed) will require investigating. We