PIOCH. CHARLES PLUMET. Mme. RACHILDE. J.F. RAFFAELLI. ODILON REDON. GEORGES RENARD, Professor at the College de France. JEAN RICHEPIN, member, of the Academie Francaise. AUGUSTS RODIN. ALFRED ROLL, President of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts. J.H. ROSNY, aine, member of the Academie Goncourt. EDMOND ROSTAND, member of the Academie Francaise. SAINT-GEORGES DE BOUHELIER. CAMILLE SAINT-SAENS, member of the Institute. GABRIEL SEAILLES. PAUL SIGNAC, President of the Societe des Artistes Independants. M. STEINLEN. FRANCIS VIELE-GRIFFIN. ADOLPHE WILLETTE. * * * * * To the Literary and Artistic Associations of Foreign Countries and to all Friends of the Beautiful: "_... It is not true that our troops brutally destroyed Louvain. It is not true that we make war in contempt of the rights of mankind. Our soldiers commit neither undisciplined nor cruel acts...._" _MANIFESTO OF THE GERMAN INTELLECTUALS._ "_If the savants make science what it is, science does not make the character of the savants what it is._" _EDMOND PERRIER._ "_... Scientific barbarism_." _EMILE BOUTROUX._ I. If we were able--at this hour, when, through the act of the Teutonic Empire, the world may witness unnamable deeds--if we were able to cite the most odious of them, we should say that, after the massacre of innocent people and all the assaults on the rights of mankind committed by the German armies, the worst has seemed to us the shameless manner in which the superior intellects beyond the Rhine have dared to cover up these crimes. It is not that we ever believed that from any corner of Germany there could come to us an appearance of fellow-feeling, in these circumstances wherein no one has any other right than that of giving himself body and soul to his native land. We know that, before speaking for the universe, men threatened by the enemy should be faithful to their flag, in the face of everything and against everything--and with resolution. At no hour, therefore, have we thought that German savants and artists could raise their voice to repudiate their armies, when the latter were going to war with the object of further extending their empire. But, at least, they should keep silence, and before the horror of crimes to be judged especially by the tribunal of the elite they should not have shown their miserable enthusiasm. "You see," as a clear-sighted Dutch professor[5] has well written on this point, "if these intellectuals were not blinded they would rather have asked themselves if, in this war that stains Europe with blood, the Prussian military authorities were not losing for centuries the reputation of the great name of Germany." And suppose it were even a small matter if they had lost only the great name of Germany, that the epoch of Goethe, Kant, and Beethoven had covered with glory. But with it they have vilified as well the noble role of the philosopher, of the historian, of the savant, and of the artist.