And one day, on the banks of the Eurotas, Barrès discovers a form of beauty novel to his soul, made of measure and ease and grace, without excess or rapture. ‘On y trouve des beautés que l’on peut aimer sans souffrir!’ The sense of the whole, the acceptance of the inevitable, the tranquilness of Art, ‘épuré de tous éléments de désespoir,’ these are conceptions which, if properly assimilated, are a liberal education for a Romantic. Barrès could not say, like Gautier, ‘La vue du Parthénon m’a guéri de la maladie gothique;’ the process was slow and painful, and the inoculation of the antique was followed by a violent and feverish reaction. Between him and that unequalled past there is a solution of continuity; it is a perfection into which he cannot enter, for lack of a few drops of Greek blood in his veins; yet he has had his lesson, which he will not forget, and bears away with him a counsel to ponder in his heart. ‘La déesse m’a donné, comme à tous ses pèlerins, le dégoût de l’enflure dans l’art. Il y avait une erreur dans ma manière d’interpréter ce que j’admirais; je cherchais un effet, je tournais autour des choses jusqu’à ce qu’elles parussent le fournir. Aujourd’hui j’aborde la vie avec plus de familiarité, et je désire la voir avec des yeux aussi peu faiseurs de complexités théâtrales que l’étaient des yeux grecs.’ In this new mood of simplicity and responsibility, Barrès conceived two short novels, companion pictures, lessons in civic virtue; one for a man, the other for a girl: _Au Service de L’Allemagne_ (1905), and _Colette Baudoche_ (1909). The theme of the first occurs already in _L’Appel au Soldat_, where the two heroes examine the situation of a young French Lorrainer under a German government. When the hour comes for his military service, shall the young man desert across the frontier to a land where he is scarce accounted French, or drafted off into the Légion Étrangère? Or shall he bow the neck to the usurper? And to whom shall he owe allegiance in case of war: France or Germany? The hero of _Au Service de L’Allemagne_ is a young Alsatian, whose very name is a symbol: Ehrmann, the man of honour. He is the son of one of those old autochthonous families who, under German rule, remain at heart profoundly French; whose ancestors have fought the battles of Louis Quatorze and Napoleon; who continue to talk French by their own fireside. In Alsace-Lorraine they are at home; in France, almost as much as in Germany, they are across the border. The French novelist has hitherto taken for granted that his hero should _opter pour la France_; yet in this fashion, without great profit to the mother country, Alsace-Lorraine is being emptied of her French blood.