Valéry argues that europe’s intellectual crisis is caused by the horrors of wartime and

the lack of intellectual curiosity.

the awareness that civilization could die out.

the fear that the future will be worse than the past.

the reluctance to question fundamental beliefs and values.

chapter i -- paris: september, 1792

a surging, seething, murmuring crowd of beings that are human only in name, for to the eye and ear they seem naught but savage creatures, animated by vile passions and by the lust of vengeance and of hate.

during the greater part of the day the guillotine had been kept busy at its ghastly work: all that france had boasted of in the past centuries, of ancient names, and blue blood, had paid toll to her desire for liberty and for fraternity.

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