Librairie des cahiers
Bookshop of the Cahiers
Charles Péguy
André Bourgeois made the following shipments:
| Eleventh cahier | Twelfth cahier | |
|---|---|---|
| Provinces | 680 | 799 |
Many of these include provisional subscribers. We continue, in fact, to identify in the Bulletin officiel de la Ligue des Droits de l’Homme the sincere republicans who are founding new sections in Paris and the provinces, and we send them our cahiers on a trial basis. We have begun to identify in La Paix par le Droit the citizens who are working against war, and we send them our cahiers on a trial basis. We ask all these provisional subscribers to please let us know their intentions without delay.
We have had to discontinue our free subscriptions. Varying from one hundred and fifty to approximately two hundred and fifty since the founding of our cahiers, they were costing us at least two to three hundred francs a month.
To help us bear this burden, Les Journaux pour tous had been paying us a monthly subscription of fifty francs. They themselves had to discontinue this subsidy. Only then did we discontinue our free subscriptions.
Our free subscribers had become dear to us.
Carefully recruited, they read us attentively. They circulated the cahiers among those around them. The discontinuation of free subscriptions should therefore be seen only as a provisional expedient forced upon us by the extremity of our poverty. We have truly exhausted our finances, and the time has come to jettison some ballast. By maintaining free subscriptions that were so costly to us for as long as we did, we truly gave all that could be asked of us.
The greatest advantage we can henceforth offer our poor subscribers is the propaganda subscription, at eight francs. We accept payment of these eight francs in monthly instalments of one or two francs. Several of our former free subscribers have already taken out propaganda subscriptions payable in monthly instalments. Several of our former free subscribers have also organised collective subscriptions — that is, subscriptions paid by several persons who arrange things among themselves. Groups are odious when they are meeting-places for blather, envy, and authority; they are invaluable when they are centres of work, reading, and freedom.
We have been able to reconstitute, from our returns, a few complete first series. We sell them at the price of an ordinary subscription. We sell them only to our subscribers.
[Catalogue of available publications omitted]
The exhausted cahiers of the first series are now sold only as part of the few complete collections we have been able to reconstitute.
Our collections of the second series are nearly entirely exhausted. We earnestly ask those of our subscribers who may have duplicate cahiers to please return them to us. Conversely, those of our subscribers who may not have received some of the already published cahiers would do well to request them from us without any delay.
Many of our devoted friends use their own copies to seek out new subscribers. Let them not forget to ask us for replacement copies. We take the liberty of recommending to our friends that they maintain complete collections. The cahiers that may seem idle to them today form part of a series all the same, and those of our subscribers who in ten years possess the complete collection will then be able to see that the series were not composed at random.
We must give up publishing an index of the first two series at the end of this year. Not that an index would not be very useful. But we do not have the time to prepare one any time soon, and the successive series will be so strongly continuous that discontinuous indexes would represent them poorly. We shall therefore publish indexes at long intervals, quinquennial or decennial. In the meantime, our subscribers can compose for themselves indexes suited to their needs.
[Catalogue of available publications omitted]
We must regretfully forgo publishing at the end of this month the financial statement we are obliged to produce. We shall prepare it for the end of the school year, at the end of July or the beginning of August. We can already believe that this statement will not be unfavourable.
The very serious appeal we recently addressed to our friends and subscribers had the singular result that our friends and subscribers redoubled their effective zeal on our behalf. Not one of them said: Since things are getting difficult, I shall leave. But most of them said: Since things are getting difficult, let us work harder. By this result we learned that the common cowards had not waited for this moment to abandon us.
We renew this appeal today, and we do not wish there to be any misunderstanding about the meaning we give it.
Everything leads us to believe that from the third series onward, the Cahiers will be financially self-sustaining. They will live by their own means. I mean by this that the proceeds from extraordinary subscriptions and regular monthly subscriptions, from benefactor subscriptions, ordinary subscriptions, and propaganda subscriptions, reinforced by the profits we make from the bookshop trade, will cover expenses. The growth of subscriptions has been marvellous. We had 263 firm subscribers at the end of the first series. We now have approximately 1,200. We have thus gained at least 1,000 subscribers, since we had at least 100 cancellations at the beginning of the second series.
The level of subscriptions has very honestly progressed. We have five or six benefactor subscriptions, approximately 600 ordinary subscriptions, and approximately 600 propaganda subscriptions.
The regular monthly contributions are growing steadily. The older monthly contributions have been maintained. New ones have come in. At least twenty of our subscribers have begun sending us regularly one, two, three, or five francs per month.
New habits are taking hold among us. One of our Russian friends, the founder of Les Journaux pour tous, was kind enough to purchase from us more than a hundred copies of the tenth cahier — the advertising cahier — which contained some elements of a dossier on the recent movement for freedom in Russia. We sent these copies to addresses he had given us. We hope that purchases of this kind will occur for Jean Coste and for the forthcoming even-numbered cahiers.
It is known that the next cahier will be a dossier, as complete as necessary, on the movement for freedom in Russia since the excommunication of Tolstoi.
But above all, we are happy to announce to our true friends that the bookshop of the cahiers will in all likelihood save the cahiers — will provide the indispensable supplement.
André Bourgeois has communicated to me the first results of the bookshop. These results exceed my hopes. And yet I am accused of being too easily hopeful.
BOOKSHOP OPERATIONS
The first operation dates from 15 February 1901.
| Volumes received | Sums collected | |
|---|---|---|
| In 3 and a half months | 464 volumes | 1,334 francs |
The figures in the first column are the number of volumes we purchased from publishers for our subscribers. The figures in the second column represent the sums we received from our subscribers for the volumes we sold them.
If one considers that our bookshop service has barely begun to operate, and that it began operating in the least favourable months, one will be pleased with this first result. Such a beginning allows us to hope that from the next school year, in the good months of October, November, December, and January, we shall do a great deal of business.
It is known that the bookshop’s profits are paid in their entirety into the budget of the cahiers. We repeat that the bookshop of the cahiers costs the cahiers nothing but labour. Under these conditions we can estimate the profit at approximately one-fifth of the selling price. This is to say that since its founding, the bookshop of the cahiers has brought in to the cahiers, which sorely needed it, approximately two hundred and fifty francs — roughly half the cost of manufacturing an ordinary cahier.
We ask all our subscribers to please purchase all their books from the bookshop of the cahiers.
There is every advantage for us in this arrangement.
We have for our cahiers a staff and overhead expenses. Without increasing either this staff or these overhead expenses, we can handle commissions for all books for all our subscribers. The staff in service is freely and entirely devoted to the cahiers. The punctual administrator who so perfectly organised the administration of our publications has no less punctually organised the administration of the bookshop.
We accept subscriptions to all periodicals at no charge. And this operation is greatly to our advantage.
We offer in our offices the largest customary discounts — that is, we sell books at exactly the same prices as the Odéon.
We deliver free of charge within Paris under the same conditions.
We deliver free of charge in the provinces and abroad at the marked prices for any order under eleven francs.
We deliver free of charge in the provinces and abroad with the largest customary discounts — that is, at exactly the same prices as the Odéon — for any order of eleven francs or more.
Our bookshop service is strictly reserved for our subscribers.
Having no advances, we can operate only for cash or against a deposit.
Our subscribers in Paris, the provinces, or abroad who wish to receive their books delivered free of charge need only send M. André Bourgeois a statement of their order. French books will leave by the post of the same day. Foreign books will leave by a postal delivery within the same week.
Those of our subscribers who intend to place large orders may deposit sums with M. André Bourgeois as a running account. They then need only send us their orders by postcard. Our invoices carry the breakdown of each shipment.
To make our work easier, we ask our subscribers to send us order sheets or cards with precisely stated requests.
To make certain choices easier for them, we announce new publications. We cannot undertake to announce specialised new publications. But among the thousands of books that appear each year, there are at most fifty that every honest person and every honest society ought to have in their library. We announce these honest books, not by judging and absolving them, but by saying, as briefly and as well as we can, whenever we can, what is in them. Which is to say that we most often proceed by means of quotations, tables of contents, and summaries.
We draw our subscribers’ attention to the parasitic nature of ordering elsewhere the books they have learned about only through us.
Since the best books are not the best known, we earnestly ask those of our subscribers who discover books to please share their discoveries with us.
We have in our offices, in advance, all the books we announce. We obtain French books within two hours. We obtain foreign books within the week.
Those of our subscribers who live in Paris will give us pleasure by coming to purchase their books at our offices. Our location is central, in the sense that we are within five minutes, or less, of the Odéon.
We ask those of our subscribers who may intend to buy books from us for the holidays to please order them before the end of July. It is essential that the staff of the cahiers take a month and a half of holiday, from Monday the first of July to Thursday the fifteenth of August inclusive.
We are especially happy to supply libraries. We cannot too strongly urge our friends lost in the countryside and small towns to found libraries without formalities. Parliamentary talking-shop groups are as vain as reading societies are effective — provided one reads in them.
We supply all kinds of books, not only literature but also science, law, medicine, and so forth.
We have supplied or will supply several popular libraries — university-extension libraries, municipal libraries, university libraries, school libraries. People have been kind enough to ask our advice on the very constitution of these libraries, on the choice of books given a budget of such and such an amount. We have thus been led to draw up lists that we communicate on request. This work will be developed and completed in the third series of our cahiers.
Given that there exists a pernicious institution called prize day, it is better to distribute good books there than bad ones. We are in a position to sell and, if necessary, to recommend such good books.
I earnestly ask those of our subscribers who live in the provinces and who will pass through Paris during the holidays to please come see me. I shall be at the cahiers on Thursdays from two to five. A serious conversation is worth more than a year of correspondence.
We ask those of our subscribers who change their residence only for the duration of the holidays to please not request any change of address from us. We ask them to leave instructions at home so that the cahiers will follow.
[Catalogue of available publications omitted]
For these reasons we can believe that our cahiers will survive from the third series onward and that the amortisation of the initial debt may begin shortly thereafter. There remains, nevertheless, this debt. I shall give an idea of it by saying that the deficit would not exist:
a) if we had never provided free subscriptions;
b) if we had founded the bookshop of the cahiers at the same time as the cahiers;
c) if we had not had to carry out the launch of the second series.
I shall say elsewhere, or have said:
a) why we provided free subscriptions;
b) why we did not found the bookshop of the cahiers at the same time as the cahiers;
c) why we carried out the launch of the second series.
For the time being, it suffices to know:
a) that we no longer provide free subscriptions;
b) that the bookshop of the cahiers is doing well;
c) that we shall never again have to carry out a major launch.
It remains that there is at present a deficit, for which I have pledged myself body and soul. I ask whether it is just that I should be left to bear the entire responsibility until it is amortised. Such is the precise meaning of the appeal I address for the last time to the friends of these cahiers.
I wish to arouse no one’s pity. I have no charity to ask for. I shall not say that it is a matter of the life of our cahiers. The moment is past when one had to wonder whether the cahiers would live or whether they would be successfully killed. It is no longer a question of anything but leaving me or not leaving me, at the beginning of a persevering enterprise, the responsibility for rather large commitments.
Let us count on ourselves, while waiting for public morals to be restored. Poor, let us count on our poor selves. Let our poor friends send us regularly one or two francs a month. Several have already begun. Let our even poorer friends band together and take out collective subscriptions or collective monthly contributions.
We are told that our cahiers circulate widely. Simple honesty demands that all those who read us contribute something toward remunerating us. One cannot ask that our cahiers work for a starvation wage. Whenever in the countryside and in the towns of the provinces our cahiers are read in common, let our readers agree to subscribe and to contribute in common, without any formalities.
Besides producing much more, the regular monthly subscription has the incomparable moral advantage of demanding from the subscriber a constant attention, a sustained activity, a continuous effort. The worker, the clerk, the professor, the tutor, the schoolteacher who thinks of us at the beginning of each month consoles us more than anything for the vulgar abandonments of the past.
Friends sometimes ask us why we compose the cahiers in such or such a manner. They readily believe that we have our reasons. They ask us for them. We cannot give them in the cahiers themselves. The cahiers must demonstrate their life by living, not by a cumbersome enumeration of the reasons they have for living — and for living thus. I shall therefore write a memorandum, which will not be published in the series of the cahiers, in which I shall give these reasons.
We ask those of our subscribers who are going on holiday to please seek subscriptions for us in regions they have not yet exhausted.
To our knowledge and among the republicans, at least four attempts at boycott have been committed this year:
the first against the Cahiers de la Quinzaine;
the second against the Coopération des idées;
the third against the Temps nouveaux;
the fourth against the Mouvement Socialiste.
I take the liberty of calling boycott the concerted starving-out of weak comrades by strong comrades.
For reasons we shall give elsewhere, we are resolved not to publish in the series of our cahiers the dossier of the boycott we are suffering. We shall publish the dossier of the boycott exercised against the Mouvement Socialiste when we publish one or more accounts we have of the Lyon congress.
We publish today a dossier of the boycott exercised against the Temps nouveaux and a dossier of the Coopération des idées.
REPORT ON OUR MANDATE
We read in Le Socialiste, the central organ of the Parti ouvrier français, in the issue of 9–16 June:
Le Loiret — Orléans. — Citizen Lucien Roland, member of the National Council, gave a talk on the situation of the socialist party in France to the social studies group. After this talk, a reading was given of a pamphlet in which a certain Péguy tries to be clever by criticising the members of the social studies group of Orléans. The following resolution, proposed, was voted unanimously:
The members of the social studies group, having taken note of a certain publication in which a M. Charles Péguy gives free rein to his malice by stupidly criticising the activists, declare that they attach no importance to this gossip, congratulate the Parti Ouvrier français for having been, in recent times, the faithful guardian of true socialism, and affirm that citizen Roland has always faithfully fulfilled the various mandates entrusted to him at the congresses.
The group further decides to support, in the forthcoming legislative elections, a clearly socialist and revolutionary candidacy.
JEAN COSTE
We have received this letter:
SOCIÉTÉ NOUVELLE DE LIBRAIRIE ET D’ÉDITION, 18 June 1901
Director: Félix Malterre
It is I who reported to the Board of Directors of the Société Nouvelle on M. Lavergne’s novel. I am obliged to issue a categorical denial of the remarks you attribute to me.
Please insert this letter in your next cahier.
Léon Blum
I maintain my position.
I am preparing a memorandum to definitively ensure my personal defence and that of the cahiers. This memorandum will not be published in the series of the cahiers.
Charles Péguy
Those of our subscribers who follow our recommendations have subscribed to the Bibliothèque Socialiste begun by the Société Nouvelle de librairie et d’édition, a publication currently suspended. They therefore have in hand the Proudhon of M. Hubert Bourgin.