Several weeks had passed and Clerambault was thinking of a new publication, when, one morning, Leo Camus burst noisily into his room. He was blue with rage, as with the most tragic expression he held up a newspaper before Clerambault's eyes: "Read that!" he commanded, and standing behind his brother-in-law as he read, he went on: "What does the beastly thing mean?" Clerambault was dismayed to find himself stabbed by what he had believed to be a friendly hand. A well-known writer, a colleague of Perrotin's, a serious honourable man, and one always on good terms with him, had denounced him publicly and without hesitation. Though he had known Clerambault long enough to have no doubt as to the purity of his intentions, he held him up as a man dishonoured. An historian, well used to the manipulation of text, he seized upon detached phrases of Clerambault's pamphlet and brandished them as an act of treason. A personal letter would not have satisfied his virtuous indignation; he chose a loud "yellow journal," a laboratory of blackmail despised by a million Frenchmen, who nevertheless swallowed all its humbug with open mouths. "I can't believe it," stammered Clerambault, who felt helpless before this unexpected hostility. "There is no time to be lost," declared Camus, "you must answer." "Answer? But what can I say?" "The first thing, of course, is to deny it as a base invention." "But it is not an invention," said Clerambault, looking Camus in the face. It was the turn of the latter to look as if he had been struck by lightning. "You say it is not,--not?" he stammered. "I wrote the pamphlet," said Clerambault, "but the meaning has been distorted by this article." Camus could not wait for the end of the sentence, but began to howl: "You wrote a thing like that!... You, a man like you!" Clerambault tried to calm his brother-in-law, begging him not to judge until he knew all; but Camus would do nothing but shout, calling him crazy, and screaming: "I don't know anything about all that. Have you written against the war, or the country. Yes, or no?" "I wrote that war is a crime, and that all countries are stained by it...." Without allowing Clerambault to explain himself farther, Camus sprang at him, as if he meant to shake him by the collar; but restraining himself, he hissed in his face that he was the criminal, and deserved to be tried by court-martial at once.