"I do not know what is thought in Paris of this protest which has brought me some very kind letters from my _confrères_, but it has stupefied me. I do not know those young men. They do not belong to my _entourage_, they have never sat at my table, they are not my friends. If they are disciples of mine--and remember I do not seek to make disciples--they are so without my knowledge. Why then do they repudiate me? The situation is original. It is as if a woman with whom a man never had any intercourse were to write him: 'I have had quite enough of you, let us separate!' The man would certainly reply to that: 'It's all one to me.' Well, the position is very similar. "If friends of mine, if Maupassant, Huysmans, and Céard, had addressed me in such language publicly, I should certainly have felt somewhat offended. But this declaration can have no such effect on me. I shall make no answer to it at all. It would be giving importance to a matter which has none. When I am fighting a theatrical battle I write an open letter to Sarcey because Sarcey certainly exercises great authority. In some literary discussions I have written in a similar way to Albert Wolff, because he is an old _chroniqueur_ to whom people listen. But whatever may be my feelings towards the five gentlemen who have signed the document we are speaking of, they must excuse me if I don't answer, for I have nothing to say to them.... One thing I cannot understand is why these young men should pass themselves off as soldiers of mine deserting my flag. The only one I know a very, very little is Bonnetain, whose 'Opium' I have read, and whose talent I esteem. He once called on me; and when he appeared before the Tribunal of Correctional Police, after 'Chariot s'amuse,' he wrote asking me to let him have a letter to be read in court. I sent him one, but I advised him not to use it, for the judges, I fancy, hold me in slight esteem. Well, I met Bonnetain again at Daudet's, at the 'Sapho' dinner, and that is all!... The comical part of the affair is that people used to reproach me with what they called 'my tail.' They were willing to tolerate what I wrote, but they refused to accept the productions of the young men who claimed to be my disciples--though I cried from the house roofs that I had none. 'Cut your tail off!' people repeated. Well, it is cut off at last. It has taken itself off of its own accord, and now, perhaps, folk will be satisfied."[65]