Charles Péguy, Lieutenant of the 276th Infantry Regiment at Coulommiers

"Le Pion" ("the supervisor").

Blessed are those who died for carnal earth,
Provided it was in a just war.
Blessed are those who died for four corners of earth.
Blessed are those who died a solemn death.
 

 

 

Charles Péguy was born on 7 January 1873 in Orléans (Loiret).

The only son of a carpenter and a chair repairer, Charles was ten months old when his father Désiré, a frail man who had taken part in the defence of Paris in 1871, returned ill and died prematurely at the age of 27 on 18 November 1873.

Charles Péguy, a brilliant pupil in Orléans, continued his studies in Paris, but failed at the École Normale Supérieure.

He gave up teaching at the Sorbonne to open a socialist bookshop at 17 rue Cujas in Paris on 1 May 1898.

A writer, poet, polemicist and militant Dreyfus supporter from the outset, he professed a personal form of socialism.

Despite some political disagreements and quarrels with certain people, including Jean Jaurès, he was a friend of Léon Blum, Alexandre Millerand, Émile Zola, Henri Bergson, Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Daniel Halévy, Alain Fournier and others.

At the end of 1896, aged 23, Charles Péguy completed his masterpiece, a drama in three parts: "Joan of Arc".

In Paris, on 28 October 1897, he married Charlotte, the sister of his best friend Marcel Baudouin, who had died of typhoid on 25 July 1896. 

Marcel Baudouin had steered Péguy towards socialist ideas.

The Péguy couple had 4 children: Marcel born in 1898, Germaine in 1901, Pierre in 1903 and the posthumous son, Charles-Pierre, on 4 February 1915.

On 5 January 1900, Péguy founded a socialist journal in Paris: 
"Les Cahiers de la Quinzaine" (8 rue de la Sorbonne: commemorative plaque).
He took an active part in it, writing mystical, poetic and political works.

In 1907, he became a fervent Christian again, and in June 1912, Péguy made the round trip pilgrimage on foot from Palaiseau, where he lived, to Chartres. (Alain Fournier accompanied him to Dourdan).

In July 1913, Péguy repeated this 3-day pilgrimage.

In August 1914, during the mobilisation, after visiting his close friends and reconciling with others, Péguy set off with determination for the battle. 

His work, unknown to the general public, would be made known after his death.

A reserve lieutenant, he left for the campaign as soon as mobilisation began, in the 19th company of the 276th infantry regiment at Coulommiers.

He died in battle on 5 September 1914, at the start of the Battle of the Marne, at Villeroy, near Neufmontiers-lès-Meaux. He was shot in the forehead while urging his company not to give up an inch of French land to the enemy.
 

On 22 June 1930, a bust sculpted by Paul Niclausse was unveiled in a square in Orléans, near the suburb where he was born.
(Paul Niclausse 1879-1958 lived for many years in Faremoutiers in Seine-et-Marne).

Among those present were his widow Charlotte Péguy (1879-1963), his mother Péguy, Claude Casimir-Périer's widow and actress Simone (1877-1985), who was Alain Fournier's mistress.

Victor Boudon, a soldier in the 276th Infantry Regiment, wrote about Péguy's last moments in his book "Mon Lieutenant Charles Péguy", published by Albin Michel:

During mobilisation at Bel Air station - connecting in Paris... who is this Lieutenant, seeming so cordial in his sternness, (they) replied to me::

‘It's Lieutenant Péguy’.
...Péguy... ?
The name didn't ring a bell and I was far from thinking that it was Charles Péguy, the writer and poet, founder and editor of the "cahiers de la quinzaine", as I would later learn.
Too late... a lieutenant in the Territorial Regiment, retained at his request in the same reserve regiment (the 276th Infantry Regiment) and the same company (the 19th) to which he had been posted since 1905’.

The day after Péguy's death, a warrant officer told the men about the previous day's deaths:

‘And Pierre then told us who our lieutenant was, Péguy, the writer, polemicist and poet we had all ignored: Our “Pion” ("Supervisor").

That's what his men called him.
 
Victor Boudon wrote of Péguy's death:
‘We continue to advance, while Captain Guérin and Lieutenant Péguy march side by side, slightly ahead of us, revolver in hand and leading the way...’

They advanced with difficulty under fire and stopped behind an embankment. Bullets whistled and the French infantry responded.  

The Germans were almost invisible in their earth-toned uniforms, while the French in red and blue made good targets on these open fields.

‘...Our movement is perfectly conducted, but being ourselves without a supporting line of fire, and without protective artillery fire, we are most certainly being sacrificed.’  Boudon wrote.
 
‘He is in our midst, heedless of the bullets that aim at him and graze him, standing up bravely, running from one to the other to get the fire going...’

The French fire forced the enemy to retreat, and they retreated to the heights, leaving the banks of the tree-lined stream where they had stood until then. Seeing this, and despite the heat and fatigue, the order came: ‘Advance! '

The men ran, lying down in the beetroot, stubble or oats towards the German positions. The enemy had kept their machine guns in place to cover the retreat. Those machine guns caught the troops in a deadly crossfire and mowed down whole ranks of infantrymen.

Captain Guérin fell.  

‘Drawing his sword from the scabbard and pointing it in the direction of the enemy, Péguy shouted:  

‘The captain has fallen! ...
I'm taking command!
...Follow me!
...Advance!
...with the bayonet!’
 
The German "mascinengewehr" (machine gun) fired at us like a flock of sparrows.  

However, a first advance, followed by a second, took our right wing, led by Péguy, a hundred and fifty metres forward...’

‘And now to advance further, in a single wave of attack, without a line of support to the rear protecting us with its fire, on ground where the downward slope towards the stream, and above all the high visibility of our uniforms, make us excellent living red and blue targets, with no more than thirty to forty cartridges per man left as a result of our firing and with no possibility of being replenished, is madness, is to run towards a certain massacre, and moreover useless.... There won't be ten of us left! ...'

‘But caught up in the frenzied atmosphere of battle, we have no time for fear......’

‘However, the violence of the enemy fire is such that Péguy is forced to order us to stop marching.
‘Lie down!' ...he shouted, and fire at will...’
But he remained standing in front of us, spyglass in hand, directing the fire, a hero in hell.'

On the left, Lieutenant de La Cornillère fell.  

The men fired as hard as they could to protect themselves.

The machine-gun fire did not stop. Many fell. ‘All the time there were cries and groans.'......

'But Lieutenant Péguy was still standing, despite us shouting 

‘Lie down!'  

A glorious fool in his bravery, deaf to our calls for caution, annoyed and irritated by this unequal struggle, whose danger he sees and understands better than we do.  

Faced with the cries and pleas of the wounded, who were becoming increasingly anxious and urgent, he shouted with furious energy  

‘Fire! Fire! Bloody hell! ....'

Some people shout at him, and I'm one of them, ‘We haven't got any ammunition, my lieutenant, we're all going down'.

'It doesn't matter,' shouts Péguy, in the storm that is blowing louder than ever, ’I haven't got any either!  

See, keep firing!'

And coming up to our line, his spyglass in his hand, exploring the German lines, he stands up like a challenge to the machine-gun fire, under the ever more violent fire of the enemy machine-guns’...

‘At the same moment, a murderous bullet shattered his noble forehead.
He fell, all at once, on his side, and from his lips came a muffled complaint, like a whisper, a last thought, a final prayer:

'Oh, my God! ...My children! ...'.

And the fight was over for him’.