 |
| A painting. |
A card that came to me via postcrossing.com
From reading online here are some details.
Charles Pierre Péguy (French: [ʃaʁl peɡi]; 7 January 1873 – 5 September 1914) was a noted French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialismand nationalism, but by 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a believing but non-practicing Roman Catholic.[1][2][3] From that time, Catholicism strongly influenced his works.
When the Great War broke out, Péguy became a lieutenant in the 19th company of the French 276th Infantry Regiment. He died in battle, shot in the forehead, near Villeroy, Seine-et-Marne on the day before the beginning of the Battle of the Marne.[5] There is a memorial to Péguy near the field where he was killed.
"The sinner is at the very heart of Christianity. Nobody is so competent as the sinner in matters of Christianity. Nobody, except the saint." This is the epigraph to
Graham Greene's novel
The Heart of the Matter (1951).
[12]
"It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive." (Notre Patrie, 1905).
"Tyranny is always better organised than freedom".
[13]
"Kantian ethics has clean hands but, in a manner of speaking, actually no hands."
[14]
"How maddening, says God, it will be when there are no longer any Frenchmen"
[15]
"There will be things that I do that no one will be left to understand." (Le Mystère des saints Innocents)
"It is impossible to write ancient history because we do not have enough sources, and impossible to write modern history because we have too many". (Clio, 1909)
"Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics." (Notre Jeunesse, 1909)
