Procès-verbaux

Minutes

Charles Péguy

Last Saturday, February 9, a few moments before the time when I finally resolved to found a bookshop to provide for the needs of the cahiers, I received the following notice:

SOCIÉTÉ NOUVELLE DE LIBRAIRIE ET D’ÉDITION — February 8, 1907. Director: Félix MALTERRE. NOTICE. Rue Cujas, PARIS. Telephone 801-04. Extraordinary General Assembly, Sunday, February, at 10 o’clock, at the bookshop. AGENDA: The Péguy Incident. The Secretary, Mario ROQUES.

On Sunday, February 17, at the beginning of the session, a friend I had in the Société handed the chairman a letter that I reproduce from memory:

To the chairman of the General Assembly of the Société Nouvelle de librairie et d’édition, rue Cujas, Paris,

Since you are assembled to deal with the Péguy incident, allow me to remind the members once again that I am personally at their entire disposal. If they will be good enough to come and see me on Thursdays from two o’clock to five o’clock and from eight o’clock to ten o’clock, 16, rue de la Sorbonne, second floor, I will give them all the information they have the right and the duty to request.

I remain in Paris on Fridays to attend M. Bergson’s lectures and on Saturdays to attend the courses at the socialist school. I can give or accept appointments for those two days, provided they are arranged in advance.

As manager of the cahiers, and in accordance with the methods that were common to us, I shall be happy to publish any corrections that may reach us properly from the interested parties.

Charles Péguy

I beg the reader’s pardon if this text is not rigorously literal. But overwhelmed with work at the time, I did not feel the need to make a duplicate copy. I guarantee the meaning of my reproduction.

The session of February 17 was painful and long. The board of directors had prepared a report of incredible violence. The discussion was of unheard-of violence. Irreparable words were spoken. They parted without reaching any conclusion.

No member came to ask me for the information and personal references I had offered to present.

The session resumed on Sunday the 24th. I was not summoned for this second Sunday. My friend was summoned instead. A juridical solecism. A second report was voted upon, much less violent than the first. I received communication of this second report in the following terms:

SOCIÉTÉ NOUVELLE DE LIBRAIRIE ET D’ÉDITION. Director: Félix MALTERRE. Paris, February 28, 1901. Rue Cujas. Telephone 801-04.

My dear Péguy,

The General Assembly of the Société Nouvelle, held on February 17 and 24, voted a resolution whose text I am forwarding to you, as I was charged to do in my capacity as chairman of the Assembly.

Yours truly, Paul Fauconnet

RESOLUTION

The General Assembly of the members of the Société Nouvelle de librairie et d’édition, meeting in extraordinary session on February 17 and 24, 1901, having taken cognizance of the Cahier de la Quinzaine, fifth of the second series, having heard the report presented to it on this subject by the Board of Directors, and having received the opinion of the special commission established to examine the incident:

Gives its complete approval to the conduct of the Board of Directors as set forth in the report;

Approves the Board of Directors for having refrained from pursuing Péguy’s attacks, which for thirteen months have targeted the house and those who devote their labor to it;

Approves it for having, by way of sole rectification, continued to work on the positive and impersonal undertaking that corresponded to the conscience of its members and of the members of the Société acting in solidarity with them;

Regrets on Péguy’s behalf that he did not see fit to attend the present meeting for contradictory explanations with the appropriate parties on the following three points:

1. On page 23 of the cahier in question, whose printing authorization is dated January 28, 1901, there are, concerning the report of the International Socialist Congress, several assertions contrary to the facts which, at the assembly of the preceding January 10, had been established, in Péguy’s presence, by the Board of Directors’ report and the explanations furnished thereafter; no note or postscript indicates that the text, perhaps composed before the 10th, is henceforth inaccurate;

2. Péguy, on page 20 of the same cahier, declares that he has not obtained communication of the earlier report in which he was called into question and (page 22) does not know whether he will obtain it. Yet on January 28, twelve days had passed since, using the authorization the assembly of the 10th had given him, Péguy had taken a copy of this report: no postscript indicates that his uncertainty on this point has ceased. Moreover, in the account he gives of the dispute occasioned by the publication of the Cahiers de la Quinzaine between the Board of Directors and himself, Péguy omits to recall prior facts whose connection and importance the report had shown and, regarding the decisive interview, differs, at least by omission, from the contemporaneous account — then uncontested — given by the same report. No use is made or announced of the text of this report. — See annex to the present resolution.

3. Péguy writes (page 15): “My capital was exhausted (in December 1899), since the three-fifths that remained to me were immobilized for at least two years in the founding of the same Société Nouvelle.” This sentence gives to understand that Péguy had, when the bookshop he founded was transformed into a company, lost two-fifths of his assets, that a remaining capital equal to three-fifths had been invested in the new company and was, for some obscure reason, rendered unavailable for a long period. A report read at the assembly of the preceding January 10 recalled, in Péguy’s presence and without any objection from him, that the shares of Péguy and his nominee Bellais had been recognized to them “in representation of contribution” — and not in exchange for actual payment of capital —; that “these contributions were established under very particular circumstances”; that “they were fixed at the sum that Péguy, according to his declaration (in July 1899), had spent in the bookshop before the formation of the Société”; (the Société moreover assumed a considerable liability). This same report recalled, on the other hand, that the contribution shares were subject to inalienability by an express provision of the law; that by the effect of the resignation sent in advance (October 1900) by Péguy and Bellais, the shares, recognized to them as just stated, would be, as soon as the legal inalienability ceased (August 12, 1901), purchased or reimbursed in cash, under the conditions provided for by the statutes. Of these facts, recalled at the assembly of January 10, 1901, which determine the origin of the capital registered in Péguy’s name and the circumstances of the withdrawal he carried out, no mention is made or announced in the cahier whose printing authorization is dated January 28;

The assembly resolves that the present resolution with its annexes (A and B) shall be sent to Péguy for insertion in the Cahiers de la Quinzaine.

ANNEX A

Extract from the report read at the Assembly of January 10, 1901, and summary of the oral explanations given thereafter by the Board of Directors.

“A month before the date set for the Congress… the General Committee (the former one, which accepted our offers for the stenography and printing of the National Congress) spontaneously asked us whether we would not be willing to organize, on the same terms, the stenography and publication of the International Congress. We recognized, upon examination, that a proper stenography — that is, a complete stenography in three languages, of all speeches delivered in French, German, and English — would necessarily entail enormous costs, obliging us to assemble a special team of stenographers for each of the three languages; that, on the other hand, a purely French stenography, recording only words spoken in French, would, strictly speaking, be a complete stenography only with respect to the speeches of French orators and would necessarily have the character of a stenographic-analytical report for the speeches of foreign orators, who could, in that case, only be noted according to the necessarily abridged and analytical translation of the interpreters.

We therefore responded to the General Committee that the organization of a genuine stenography seemed to us, if not impossible, at least extremely costly, and that we did not consider it possible to organize it at our own expense, but that we would willingly agree to publish a short analytical report in a brief pamphlet.

The General Committee duly gave us the mission to take charge of it (letter of September 6, 1900). The Congress took place without anyone thinking to organize a regular secretariat charged with drafting the minutes of the sessions. We ultimately had to take charge of the drafting, which was done by means of all accessible documents, then submitted to the examination of the General Committee, then communicated to the international secretariat in Brussels.”

It was added orally to this statement that the stenography acquired by Péguy was merely a stenography of French-language words, hence analytical for speeches delivered in foreign languages; that, moreover, this work had been offered to us before being acquired by Péguy, and, for the reasons indicated, had seemed to us of insufficient value; that the new General Committee, having believed that this stenography was complete, had asked us whether we did not think it preferable to substitute it for the analytical report; and that, upon our renewed explanations, the commission delegated by the new General Committee had recognized that the analytical report, prepared as stated, alone merited official recognition.

ANNEX B

Extract from the report read at the General Assembly of January 18, 1900. — On behalf of the Board of Directors.

An incident occurred a few days ago that has been our only great sorrow in the course of these five months. We must explain ourselves on this matter without reserve.

You will recall that the statutes of our Société assign to a delegate for publishing the direction of the industrial service of the house: reception and reading of proposed manuscripts, execution of works admitted for publication. Péguy had agreed to take on these functions. We knew they would be light at the beginning, that they would leave him the leisure to take, without worry for the morrow, the rest he needed, and to attend to his personal work. Nearly two months ago, when it was time for us to contract anew with the Mouvement socialiste, we called upon Péguy: it was indispensable that we have in good time the technical information that would allow us, either by approaching another printer or by asking the printer of the Mouvement socialiste to offer us better terms, to negotiate knowledgeably and on the least onerous terms. Péguy tried to obtain this information for us; then, after a week, wrote us that he felt himself unfit to do what we expected of him and that he was resigning from his functions. We understood nothing of this resignation, which nothing justified and which seemed to us unreasonable and senseless. I have since learned that from that moment he felt that his place was no longer in a house that was no longer what he had hoped it would be and that was taking on the manner of a mere commercial enterprise. I cannot manage to understand this grievance. If the word “commercial” means that one seeks, by all customary methods, to achieve the most rapid and substantial gains, the reproach is absurd, since it is too manifestly clear that none of us pursues his personal interest, and since, as this account has shown you, our administration has used honest and modestly remunerative methods. If it means that one strives, by exact and rigorous management, not to rush headlong to ruin, the absurdity of the reproach is even more flagrant.

I knew nothing of these grievances and he said nothing of them to me. I remonstrated with him, with all the deep and old friendship I bear him, that in separating from us he was committing a folly that nothing explained, that nothing excused. He withdrew his resignation. A few days later, he informed us that after mature reflection he recognized himself unfit for at least a portion of the functions we might expect of him under the statutes, that he asked to be relieved of the properly industrial negotiations with the printers, that he was therefore resigning, but only provisionally, until March, from that portion of his functions, and that he would retain the rest. We accepted this provisional formula of agreement. Then we heard nothing more.

The Congress came along, the stenography and printing of the proceedings, and we acquitted ourselves as best we could, without his help, of the heavy editorial work on that volume.

Around December 25, Péguy notified us by letter that he would need to speak with the board of directors, on the following Thursday, about an urgent proposal. The same day or the next we were told he was going to publish a periodical, whose first issue would appear on one of the first days of January, that this periodical would have the same format, the same typeface, the same price, and, on different dates, the same periodicity as Le Mouvement socialiste. He came therefore the following Thursday. He told us that he was being urged to produce a periodical of information that would give, in the authentic form of the document, the essential political facts of the fortnight: that the need for such a periodical was urgent; that he himself moreover was eager to be able at last to say what he thought and publish what he would write, without having to fear the refusals or the requests for softening and cutting from overly cautious editors; that he had kept silent during the congress, that he was eager to speak freely and to revolt; that he wanted no hypocritical constraints nor open or hidden tyrannies; that from the very first issue he would tell the truth, documents in hand, about the Liebknecht case, and in the second issue about the Vaillant-Millerand case; that all measures had been taken, that the costs of production would be covered by voluntary subscriptions and by subscriber fees, that he feared nothing and asked for nothing; — and he asked us to reply to him at once, with a yes or a no, whether the bookshop would consent to take this periodical on deposit, without cost or risk.

It was I who answered him, and I did so, I am sure, with all my heart, with all the tenderness I have for him and with an infinite sadness. I told him that one could not fit into a hundred pages, nor into five hundred nor into two thousand, the authentic documents of the political life of a fortnight; that it would therefore be necessary to choose; that his choices, judging by the examples he had cited, would fall upon everything that divides, everything that irritates; that this course of action was in open contradiction with the one we had agreed upon when we were united; that we had supported, insofar as we support anything, the policy of agreement and unity at all costs; that discipline accepted as necessary is neither obedience nor constraint; that he was undertaking with pure intentions a work that would have the effect of casting less pure or less solid men into violent anarchy; that to arrogate to oneself this right of supreme judge over persons and things was to practice a personalism and an aristocratism for which I had a horror, and that, for my part, I would always be strongly hostile to a work undertaken in that spirit. I added that it was madness to launch oneself thus, without assured resources, into a perilous and costly adventure, whose chances of immediate success were nil or very slim. I told him still more, everything that those who love him would have said in my place, and I begged him not to abandon his project, but to reflect, to postpone, to examine more closely with us, his friends. He replied that the matter was thoroughly considered, that he would not go back on his resolution, and he left.

Your Board of Directors was unanimous in sharing my sentiment. We did what we could to prevent him from leaving us. He was free to go, he went, and he threw himself, in full independence, into an adventure that commits only himself. We wished to tell you quite simply the reasons for our conduct in an affair that has been for us a serious suffering. And we wished to say aloud to those who have accused us of having broken with Péguy and of having made war upon him, that they were deceived, that we have not of our own accord opened our mouths a single time on this affair, and that we have contented ourselves with giving to those who asked us the reasons for our attitude the explanations that we have just given you.

I maintain that my cahier, as far as I was concerned, gave the situation exactly as it stood on the first of January, with this reservation: that I did not say in my defense a fifth of what I could have said, that I did not produce a fifth of what I could have produced.

Preliminary question: I ask our subscribers, before whom I am responsible and accountable, I ask the public to be good enough to note that this resolution is scrupulously anonymous. The signature of M. Mario Roques at the bottom of the official notice does not officially imply that M. Roques voted the approval of the report. The signature of M. Paul Fauconnet at the bottom of the official and courteous communication does not officially imply either that M. Fauconnet voted the approval of the report. Neither the secretary of the board of directors nor the chairman of the general assembly session is required to vote with the majority of the board of directors and the majority of the general assembly.

This resolution reached me anonymously. If one considers that this is the first time that university men have assembled to condemn one of their own, I shall be approved for not allowing a regrettable precedent to be established. Since I do not wish to rush the debate and since several members, to my knowledge, reside or travel in very distant lands, I give a period of ten weeks to the members who voted this resolution to send me officially and publicly their names. When one accuses, one signs. I accept signatures until May 31 inclusive.

But there is someone I shall defend at once. My nominee Bellais was my friend when I founded the bookshop. Since I was then a study fellow at the Sorbonne, I could not found the house under my own name. Most of my friends were also university men. My friend Georges Bellais gave me everything he had: his name, much of his time, many steps and errands. He signed leases and whatever I wished. When he was the master in my house, he neglected to throw me out. For he was no Hegelian. I wish to thank him publicly for this.

My friend Georges Bellais kindly asks me to request the Société Nouvelle to remove his name from the company name, because the house is no longer the same.

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