But the participants also saw that the challenge they faced was directed against more than simply the liberal economic order and the political democracy born out of the 19th century. "The totalitarian rebellion," Lippmann commented in his introductory remarks to the conference, "attacks the entirety of the Western tradition - its religion, its science, its law, its state, its property, its family, its morality and its conception of the human person." As a matter of urgency, the civilised world had to find a response to an inhuman enemy.

And, like Benda, they saw that intellectuals were aiding and abetting this enemy. Never, Rougier asserted, had the clercs betrayed as much as they were now doing. They denounced the crimes of Hitler and of fascism but remained silent before the Moscow show trials. They called for the socialisation of the economy without understanding that they were weakening democracy and helping dictators. Believing themselves to be the most implacable enemies of tyranny, they were in fact its best allies. They were betraying the very cause that they professed to serve. To be a clerc who did not betray, Rougier therefore responded, it was not enough to be a scholar and a teacher. The clerc had to enter the fray in defence of the free use of reason.

To read the transcript of these (often heated) discussions today is to enter a world that is eerily familiar. The participants reflected upon the rise of protectionism and economic nationalism. They saw the pressures placed upon governments to save big companies from bankruptcy. They acknowledged that people were perplexed and bewildered by the economic phenomena of the modern world. One French professor even commented: "An unreasonable optimism and enthusiasm took hold of the public and led bankers to excessive courses of action; the federal reserve banks were unable to temper such an élan." For good measure, he then added: "The fall that followed the boom was that much more catastrophic."