Louis de Gonzague

Louis de Gonzaga

Charles Peguy

EIGHTH CAHIER, NEW YEAR’S DAY CAHIER OF THE SEVENTH SERIES

The Christmas cahiers and New Year’s Day cahiers of previous series have been:

Seventh cahier of the fourth series, a white cahier of 88 pages, ready for press Saturday December 20, finished printing Tuesday December 23, one franc. Christmas cahier; the Grant Testament of master Francoys Villon — 1461 — LXXIX; Ballade that Villon wrote at the request of his mother to pray to Our Lady; Three letters from Tolstoy, translation established for the cahiers by the care of Romain Rolland; Jerome and Jean Tharaud — the legend of the Virgin; — of the monk who wished to see Our Lady; the image; the three roses of Our Lady Saint Mary; of the candle that came to rest on the viol of Pierre de Syglar; of the cleric who prayed to Our Lady for his lust;

Louis Gillet — The Tower of Armor — gwerz of Cornwall;

Eighth cahier, January first of the fourth series, a white cahier of 96 pages, ready for press Saturday the 27th, finished printing Tuesday December 30, 1902, two francs.

Rene Salome — Monsieur Matou and the circumstances of his life; see below the true image of Monsieur Matou; the linen wardrobe and the salamander; the sewing table; the ball of grey wool; Monsieur Matou music lover; Monsieur Matou and the araucaria; the story of Monsieur Mouton, told to Monsieur Matou; Monsieur Matou as property owner; wisdom of Monsieur Matou; a voyage of Monsieur Matou; Monsieur Matou at the fountain; caprices; circumstances of his life; letter to Monsieur Matou;

LOUIS DE GONZAGA

With the good wishes of the cahiers for this new year of work: it was in these terms that I had taken the liberty of wishing a happy new year to the subscribers of the cahiers in the cahier of Rene Salome, recalled above, Monsieur Matou and the Circumstances of His Life, eighth cahier, January first of the fourth series, a white cahier of 96 pages, ready for press Saturday the 27th, finished printing Tuesday December 30, 1902, two francs. With the good wishes of the cahiers for this new year, that is all we can permit ourselves to wish today, for we do not know if this new year will be a year of work. In the time of Salome, for the year 1903, perhaps it was only a matter of work. Today, and for this year 1906, we absolutely do not know whether it will be a matter of work or of some unaccustomed fortune.

With the good wishes of the cahiers for this new year of work, this is how I had taken the liberty of wishing a happy new year for the year 1903. I do believe that since then, from year to year, I had neglected to renew this salutation, which would have become annually a sort of official formality, a kind of subscription to the salutation. Today let us hasten to begin again. For today we must begin again to wish each other a happy new year.

A happy new year; with these old social habits it is as with the feelings and passions of nature: one thinks one knows them thoroughly, and all of a sudden one realizes that one knew nothing about them at all; the happy new year, an old habit, obsolete, naive, inoffensive, and which one thought good-natured. And all of a sudden one realizes that presently, when our little children will come natively to wish us a happy new year, this amused habit, but this worn habit, in the total ignorance in which we are of what we shall be in a year, and first of all whether we shall be, this habit that one thought exhausted will suddenly take on an unexpected freshness and meaning. Truly no one supposed that this habit could ever again become a non-habit; no one imagined that this habit would one day again become a novelty, an innovation, a new and first act, a point of origin and beginning of a series; and when our little children speak presently, and like them so many grown-ups, they will say words that they will literally not understand, they will speak a language they will not know, they will have the gift of prophecy, or else they will be like those messengers of antiquity who carried a message, who delivered it, who pronounced it, and who knew nothing of what they had said, nor of what they had brought. They have a tongue and lips, and they do not hear. We on the contrary, we who know, when presently we wish each other a happy new year, we shall wish it to each other ritually, we shall not say a word more, but half-smiling we shall put on airs, because pronouncing ritual and modest words we shall know that we signify, that we carry infinitely beyond our own words.

Let us wish each other, as our fathers did, a happy new year; at the beginning of this year of fortune or of fate, friends, let us wish each other a good year. If we were ancients, we could reduce ourselves to wishing that this year 1906, beginning today, be a happy year. But since we are moderns, sprung from the four disciplines, Hebraic, Hellenic, Christian, and French, let us at least have the virtues of our vices. Let us not forget that humanity has not known only Plato, that it has not known only this greatest philosopher of antiquity, but that it has also known the great modern philosophers, Descartes, Kant, Bergson.

Heirs, as much as we can, of ancient culture, as much and even a little more than we are worthy of it, let us wish each other that this year be a happy one and may it turn out well for us, but let us wish it to each other without any pride, without any presumption, without any anticipation; without any usurpation; that is to say, let us believe that fortune and that happiness considered as the success of the event is a capital element of all life, and let us not scorn success, nor that success called peace and the maintenance of peace, nor that success called victory; but let us wish it to each other in such a way and in such a language that we do not draw upon our heads either the jealousy of the gods or the vengeance of fate; let us not be like the one who defies.

Heirs as much as we can, as much as we will, and sometimes even a little more, of the Hebraic discipline, heirs of the ancient Jews, co-heirs of the ancient Jews with the modern Jews, at least with certain of them, friend of certain new Jews, particularly qualified, among the noblest, the most devoted, the most worthy of their earthly eternity and their incomparable race — table companions of the Jews, that is to say today eating at the table of the same city — from the Hebraic discipline, from the ancient and the new Jews let us receive this teaching that the temporal salvation of humanity has an infinite price, that the survival of a race, that the earthly and temporal survival of a race, that the untiring and linear survival of a race through all the waves of all the ages, that the maintenance of a race is a work, an operation of infinite price, that the earthly and temporal immortality of a chosen race, even if it were only a human race, and above all when it is a race like this race, the only one visibly chosen of all modern races, the French race, that this maintenance and this immortality is an object, a proposition of infinite price, which repays all sacrifices. And I place this paragraph under the invocation of the memory we have kept of the great Bernard-Lazare.

Heirs of the Christians, our fathers, from Pascal let us receive this teaching that eternal salvation is of an infinitely infinite price; that is to say that at the same time that we do everything humanly possible to ensure the perpetuity, the survival of this race and the conservation of this city, we shall scrupulously guard against committing anything that is injurious, remembering that everything that pertains to holiness is of an infinitely higher order; the infinite distance from bodies to minds figures the infinitely more infinite distance from minds to charity, for it is supernatural.

Platonists, we shall know our entire city; Kantians, we shall know our entire duty. Platonists, or heirs of the old Platonists, we shall know our entire Republic and we shall know all our laws. Kantians or heirs of the — new — Kantians, we shall know all our moral obligations. But we shall ask the ancients that these moral obligations remain beautiful, we shall ask the Christians that these moral obligations remain holy, remaining charitable; of the Messianics we shall ask that they remain ardent; of the Cartesians we shall ask that they remain distinct and clear; of the Bergsonians we shall ask that they remain deep, interior and living, moving and real.

French, heir of our fathers, of the one who waged the wars of Germany, of so many Frenchmen who waged war and who several times fought and each one once died for the liberty of the world, we shall ask this form of courage so particular and so eminent that the historian will be compelled to name it French courage, this courage essentially made of calm and clarity, of non-astonishment, this classical courage, essentially made of non-romanticism.

“I was then in Germany, where the occasion of the wars that are not yet ended there had called me; and, as I was returning from the coronation of the emperor toward the army, the beginning of winter stopped me in quarters where, finding no conversation to divert me, and having moreover, by good fortune, no cares nor passions to trouble me, I remained all day shut up alone by a stove, where I had all the leisure to entertain myself with my thoughts.”

This courage which consists neither in ignoring nor in scorning — to scorn, that is, not to take account of the price, to misjudge the price — but in knowing very exactly, and very exactly not being afraid and continuing very exactly. And to this sole end that we not be exposed to the temptation of national pride, it is not in the life of a Frenchman that we shall find an eminent and perfect symbol of this French courage, but it is in the life of a saint who had, I think, more of the German or of the North Italian and even of the South or of the Spaniard than of the Frenchman that we must seek it and that we shall exactly find it, and that we shall find its very formula.

A foreigner would be astonished that, being under the blow of this threat and knowing it perfectly, we continue to publish poems, prose, works.

Louis de Gonzaga: the story goes that Saint Louis de Gonzaga, being a novice, during a recreation his classmates, or his companions — I do not know how one should say it — amused themselves — let us say, to please me, that they were playing dodgeball — amused themselves suddenly by posing this question, which must form the basis of a traditional seminary joke. They suddenly posed this question, which makes, if you will, a parlor game, but which is, whether one will or not, a formidable interrogation. They said to each other, among themselves, suddenly, they asked each other: “If we learned all of a sudden, at this very moment, that the Last Judgment will take place in twenty-five minutes — it is eleven seventeen, the clock is there — what would you do?” They did not perhaps speak so briefly, and no doubt they spoke a little more like monks and like Catholics, but the meaning was the same. Then some imagined exercises, some imagined prayers, some imagined mortifications, all ran to the tribunal of penance, some commended themselves to Our Lady, and some additionally commended themselves to their patron saint. Louis de Gonzaga said: I would continue playing dodgeball.

Do not ask me if this story is authentic. It suffices me that it is one of the most admirable stories in the world. I would be quite embarrassed to give you the reference. One can give references for Hugo. For the saints it is much more difficult. It is a story that is common among Catholics. It makes the rounds of catechism classes. Speak of it to a Catholic. His first impulse will be to laugh in your face. Of course I know your story.