CONCERNING CHARLES PEGUY
KRISTOL, IRVING
Concerning Charles Peguy Reviewed by IRVING KRISTOL ¦p, «hc| cah1krs DE LA QUINZAINE. By Daniel Halevy. Translated by r_tj»jfa BstkslL Londom Dennis Dobson Ltd. 12 *. 6 d. ^uf (ft* m^ds* of tha...
...He regarded industrial sabotage as a positive blasphemy...
...In English speaking countries he is known only Afough scattered essays (as in George N, Shuster's The Catholic Church and Current Jjtsraturo) and the excerpts from his texts published by Pantheon Press under the tftie of Baste Verities...
...Peguy, himself, in later years, would set his hands to this work for the sheer satisfaction of it...
...Capitalists of men," "permanent civil-service heroes," he cetorted, and went on to attack the "multi-caeserism of committees...
...Yet he succeeded, better than so many of his more distinguished contemporaries, in living up to his favorite quotation from Corneille: "I will give up...
...Consequently, he could not enjoy Communion, and was known as the Catholic who never went to mass...
...Furthermore, Peguy's |lTQ~*e is poorly translated, while the seetry is mutilated beyond recognition...
...Everything begins in mystique and ends in politique...
...Anarchist...
...All the ills of democracy can be cured by more democracy...
...Peguy was an ardent nationalist...
...It was a one-man show from its inception until his death in 1914...
...He read proofs—so well, that hs ll called the greatest proofreader in French publishing history...
...when the honor of work was unblemished and the parts of a chair that could not be seen were as carefully constructed as the parts open to inspection...
...This expresses my idea of democracy...
...Peguy'b Catholicism bred new vexations...
...She mended so well, and worked so hard, that she was table, in time, to purchase their house and several adjoining ones...
...my blood as pure as I received it...
...Altai* lie TongueMle...
...The modern world debases...
...He is a link to the era when, as he put it, "the freethinkers of that time were more Christian than our devout people today...
...The politique of our Republicanism is now when men live off it...
...In the years immediately following, appeared Ths Porch of the Mystery of the Second Virtus, and 'the Mystery of ths Holy Innocents, now acclaimed as great French literature and certainly part of the great religious poetry of the world...
...As an Infantry lieutenant, he was killed in September, 1914, leading his troops in a charge during the battle of the ms me...
...in the case of the poetry the Original French is given along with the translations...
...Almost beyond the last...
...Peguy's socialism, "the temporal salvation of humanity by the purification of the working world," was not the same as Millerand's or Jaures' or that of the syndicalists...
...He lived so intensely, his inner life was so closely joined to his everyday existence, that there was never any room for compromise...
...Somaln Holland'* two-volume atudy appeared a little over a year ago, ¦M...
...when, above all, there was respect for self-respect...
...He insisted, in all modesty, that he couldn't write badly...
...4 If rod fc\ Smith...
...The mystique of our Republicanism was when men died for the Republic...
...The modern world debases...
...Hut he always remained true to his -mystique, eager to fight injustice and oppression at the drop of & hat...
...The orthodox reacted quickjy, and Lavisse, the historian, quipped: "Peguy is a Catholic anarchist who has put holy water in his petrol," a remark which gained wide currency...
...slightly different, until their last possible shred of significance, their last lingering overtone, has been sedulously explored...
...snd when It declares itself, even the Imagination of those who would wish to co n I est It Is overawed...
...Soon, like most frustrated idealists, he evolved a theory to explain what had happened...
...they accused him...
...Peguy's father died before he was born, and his mother supported herself and her son by mending the rush-scats of the parish chairs...
...Most of the subscribers paid their twenty irenea in order, te follow Romain RolMft Jian CnrUtophs (which first appeared in the Cahien) or Benda's •stays...
...His criticisms were bitter and personal, because Peguy couldn't look at things in a non-personal manner...
...Then, abruptly, he quit the university, married, ctened up hit combined bookshop-publishing house, and founded the Cahicrs •e la Quintaine (Fortnightly Notejejoks...
...There Is an amsslng strength in the expression of the will of a whole people...
...as is the case with most literary revivals, one doesn't have to look far to discover motives other than an awareness of intrinsic worth...
...In school he was an atheist and a socialist, always walking proudly about with outstretched palm, collecting funds for striking workers, starving Rumanians, oppressed Poles: So great was his personal prestige that he was rarely refused...
...Peguy's style is unusual and markedly his own...
...Each isius was large, more a in* then a maf aaine...
...As 1 would not he a slave, so I would not be a master...
...a French nationalist in that grand style, now less than a memory, whose nationalism contained not one spark of greed, lust, rancor, or arrogance, and which identified itself with the moral principles of internationalism...
...That is unfortunate, beesase Halevy's haut bourgeois unctueusness can scarcely do justice, to fefuy's beliefs...
...On the flyleaf of his first Cahier he had printed: "The social revolution must be moral—or nothing," and the socialist movement in France turned out to be very political and rather less moral...
...As Ande Gide has pointed out, it closely resembles a litany, consisting of the repetition of phrases and ideas over and over, the same yet...
...French to the marrow of his bone, living in the image of his adored Joan of Arc, he considered the question of war in the light of categories long since discarded by the sweep of history (though not, unfortunately, replaced by better ones...
...Peguy never recovered from the Shock of discovering that socialists could be politicians, and the gulf between them widened until his death...
...At the Sorbonne, he threw himself whole-heartedly into the Dreyfus affair, becoming the leader of the Dreyfneard students, directing them in the Innumerable street battles...
...Bapp'ly...
...It is not to be wondered at...
...His collated works were published in 1916...
...Like so many anachronisms, it has a poignant beauty, too...
...His radical views influenced his attitude toward the Church, and Ihe Church's attitude toward him...
...In 1910 he wrote: "It is unnecessary to conceal the fact that if the Church has ceased to be the official religion of the State, she has in no way ceased to be the official religion of the bourgeoisie of the State...
...Immediately after us begins another age, a quite different world, the world of those who no longer believe in anything . . . the world of the know-alls...
...It waa an event that had been maturing for many years, and now the harvest was rich...
...How quaint and anachronistic this seems today—a chivalric spirit working in a web of imperialism and power politics of which he was largely ignorant...
...His differences with Jaures were heightened by the Tangier episode of 1905, when it seemed that war with Germany was imminent...
...Moreover, he fitted in ill with the prevailing Catholic moods...
...Other worlds had other occupations...
...He wrote brilliant polemics and magnificent literature...
...It is only recently, however, that he has received his full public 4os as a great poet, a fine thinker, and an outstanding man...
...It is all there, the stumbling, the approximations, the direct hit, the strenuous internal rhythm of this thought...
...It was the France before the "uncreation of the world," by modern technology, where the modern state had not yet replaced the home, the workshop, and the parish as man's environment...
...This translation of Halevy's biography 'Hi i believe, the only book in English on (be subject...
...Toward the new militants, led by Jacques Maritnin, he felt distrust...
...Whatever differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is no democracy...
...his personal opinions, his political opinions, his religious opinions, were part and parcel of one opinion—the opinion of Peguy, ami he had neither the desire nor the patience to go out of his wsy t<t be agreeable...
...To begin with, his wife was a free-thinker and refused either to have their marriage consecrated in church or to let the children be baptised...
...For the placid Catholics who praised Anatole France and scrupulously kept their religion apart from their daily lives, he had only contempt...
...And: "We are the last...
...He saw the Kaiser's actions at Tangier as a personal insult for which he must have satisfaction, and that is how he rxpected all Frenchmen to see It...
...No doubt he was a difficult man '.o get along with...
...Charles Peguy stands today for "old France," the yrance of the proud peasant and sturdy eetlt-bourgeois, when men were at least men, and often heroes, and Saint Louis could do penance by adding water to his Wine...
...In 1909, we had publicly declared himself s Catholic with the publication of the Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc...
...When, in 1913, Bergson was placed on the Catholic Index, Peguy was indignant, and it was only the advent of the war that prevented an open rupture...
...He wrote without hesitation and never struck out a word, never revised a manuscript...
...we have ample testimony on that sv...
...Abraham Lincoln...
...sisng with several other biographies, appreciations, and selections from his writejm, Kot that Peguy was ever entirely ignored—his early influence upon Jean Jaures, sa Blum, Georges Sorel, Romain Rolland, Julien Benda, Jacques Maritain, the faiths 11 Tharaud, among others, guaranteed the perpetuation of his memory...
...When war was declared in 1914, Peguy, aged 41, the father of two children and prospective 'father of another, immediately volunteered for the front lines...
...As Halevy remarks, whereas these latter were CounterReformation Cathalics, Peguy was a preReformation Catholic...
...At the time these bulky tomes appeared, they barely caused a ripple, except that many angry readers cancelled their subscriptions...
...He went from door to door collecting subscriptions— ha never had more than a thousand...
...12 *. 6 d. ^uf (ft* m^ds* of tha high literary fever in France today, there ia a powerful Peguy MTteffval...
...fce bjuui who wrote, "The life of an •encet naan must be an apostasy snd n perpetual desertion," could not be expected to go along amicably for any length of time with any association of mere mortals...
...France— and not only France, I should think— is in a responsive mood to this kind of talk...
Vol. 30 • February 1947 • No. 5
