Page:Jean Jaurès socialist and humanitarian 1917.djvu/54

 the idea of free nationalities and objected to anyone nation attempting to dominate and crush out the individuality of another, so he longed for the free life within each nation which would enable each human being to develop the spontaneous life giving force within.

Jaurès' real love of liberty, even when the liberty of another crossed his own desires, is demonstrated in one of the few personal explanations he made in public. It was not Jaurès' custom to answer the personal attacks to which he was so constantly exposed. But when he was attacked both by friends and foes on the occasion of his daughter's first communion, he wrote in La Petite République the following words: "For three months, since the clerical press announced with a marvellous harmony, … that I had let my daughter make her first communion, I have endured outrages and triumphant raillery from some, sad astonishment from some others. To the fact itself our enemies gave the most slanderous interpretation.… They say that this religious act was the expression of my personal wish, of my personal conviction, and that I have played in the Party a rôle of incredible duplicity. It is a lie.… I have been from my youth freed from all religion and all dogma.… But really what is all this about? It is not I alone that am concerned; it is the immense majority of militant Socialists. How then does the question stand?