L'argent suite
Money (Continued)
Charles Péguy
NINTH CAHIER OF THE FOURTEENTH SERIES
CAHIERS DE LA QUINZAINE, periodical appearing every other Sunday, PARIS, 8, rue de la Sorbonne, ground floor.
M. Lanson as People Praise Him. — I shall say as much of M. Lanson. In this same issue of this same Revue Critique where M. Langlois finds that M. Babut is almost a great writer, in the issue of January 15, 1913, M. Rudler naturally finds that M. Lanson is altogether a very great writer. I would not return to this, M. Rudler having every right to happen to find that M. Lanson is a very great writer and consequently to say so, if what is interesting this time were not the basis on which M. Rudler this time finds M. Lanson to be a very great writer. I read in this issue the following review of a book by M. Lanson, by his disciple M. Rudler:
G. LANSON. — Three Months of Teaching in the United States. Notes and Impressions of a French Professor. — Paris, Hachette, 1912, 16mo, 298 pages, 3 francs 50.
Three months, of active teaching, of intense personal observation, of almost daily contact with students and their masters, of conversation with reliable and eminent informants, is enough to see a great deal, and, in all likelihood, to see clearly, provided one has the quick, keen eye, the sharp mind, thought on the alert, the habit of exact methods, and the powerful love of truth. From his brief stay in the United States, M. Lanson has drawn a lively, fine, precise, honest, and singularly rich book. The color is sober, deliberately, but delicate and sure; the line clean, and as if engraved.
G. RUDLER.
I do not know if you are like me. It seems to me a bit stiff for a disciple to write of his master publicly in such terms. For after all, if one speaks in these terms of M. Lanson, in what terms will one speak of a writer? I do not know whether it is that I have old-fashioned ideas. Obviously I am reactionary. But in the old days there was a certain modesty, a certain decency that prevented a pupil from ever speaking like that of his master.
It is not even a matter of explaining what the America of their natural equity is. For this is Rudler’s phrase; and it is no longer Lanson’s. The America of their natural equity — that is an America I shall have to discover. In reality this article by M. Rudler is riddled with errors of French. It is an error of French, M. Rudler, to write: “A last part, not the least curious, comprises a picture of the France of today. Nisard, Taine, Brunetiere have tried in turn to give theirs; it would be piquant to compare them with that of M. Lanson.” For one must, M. Rudler, either compare M. Lanson to MM. Nisard, Taine, and Brunetiere, or compare the picture given by M. Lanson to the pictures given by MM. Nisard, Taine, and Brunetiere. But one must not compare an author to three pictures nor a picture to three authors.
What shall I say of “Sirius, distant and outmoded.” What vulgarity. And this use of antinomies is very hazardous and risks being improper and purely literary. And likewise this dialectical superiority, even when it is that of M. Lanson. Dialectic is a very particular science and M. Rudler does not appear to suspect it. But here again I ask what I asked about M. Langlois. I ask: Who is being deceived? I ask: What is the method? And is there a method or is there not? And for whom is the method made? And if our masters are tired of the method, let them at least say so.
It is we fools, we writers, prose writers, poets, chroniclers (and perhaps philosophers), moralists, publicists, journalists, essayists, pamphleteers, portraitists and animal painters — it is we who have the right to go and spend three months in America and come back with a three-franc-fifty book and bring 298 pages to Hachette, if Hachette will take them. But M. Lanson is a man of science. M. Lanson follows the method. M. Lanson does not have the right. M. Lanson will not have the right to write a word about America until he has exhausted the documentation and the literature on America from the beginning of the Incas and even before, from always (for everyone knows that North America is connected to Mexico and, through Central America, to South America). It is we comedians who have the right to go to America for three months and look about; and see, and bring back, and speak, and tell. M. Lanson is required to peruse and exhaust beforehand all the documentation and all the literature on America. Otherwise M. Lanson is no longer scientific, M. Lanson no longer follows the method, M. Lanson is producing what M. Lanson would call a superficial book.
Or if our masters have had enough of the method, if this marriage weighs on them, if they want to shed the method, if they want to escape it, if they want to flee the method, first let them warn us, and second let them not wish us dead for having escaped from it into the freedom of our twenty-five years.
For if M. Lanson has the right to speak of America on a direct apprehension, I perhaps have the right, myself, to speak of Corneille and Polyeucte on a direct apprehension and without having learned and taught the entire history of French theater from Adam and Eve and the earthly paradise.
If a single one of our masters makes a single book on a subject without having exhausted the documentation and literature of the subject, then we too have the right to make a book; and all our books pass through this example they have given us once.
As long as they remain in their system, which is a monoplane system, as long as all objects of study without any exception are on exactly the same plane — the plane of indefinite detail — as long as all objects of study, exactly equally and without any exception, require the exhaustion of the documentation and literature, all is well (I mean all is well in their system) and, if you will, we have nothing to say. But let a single subject escape; let a single subject have managed to break free; let a single subject have been attempted by a direct apprehension; let a single subject have been snatched from the method of indefinite exhaustion of detail; then immediately, through that single choice, all choice enters in, and the entire system of choice, which is ours. As long as they hold the railing, they can climb their staircase. (Their staircase may lead to nothing, but that is another question.) The moment they let go of the railing, they must either fall or fly. They do not have the right to skip a step. A single infidelity annihilates the faith. Let them do, let them give a single example against themselves, and immediately we pass through. We all pass through, and we pass through entirely; omnes ac toti. If a single choice is made, all horizontality breaks. If they admit a single value, the entire system of values rises again. If they choose once, we choose always. If on their ocean of lead they let a single wave emerge, the entire system of values rises again; and the hierarchy; and order; and dignity; and genius; and the hero; and the saint; and God.
Supplement to the Parallel Lives
Parallel Lives of M. Lanson and M. Andler. — In our generation, which saw the advent of the method, two men counted and were the introducers of the method. Or rather the authors, the founders of the method. These two men were not M. Lanson and M. Langlois. These two men were not M. Andler and M. Lanson. These two men were M. Andler and M. Langlois. They were in our generation, in this sense that they were just enough above our generation to act immediately upon it. These two men were the true authors both of the method and of the advent and reign of the method among us. Not that I confuse these two men, or even pair them. M. Langlois was a historical mind. M. Andler was an almost universal mind; I say it without irony, and this is not at all the moment to feel like laughing.
I shall not speak again of M. Langlois. The man who today is director of the National Archives made himself a pamphleteer once for my personal use. It is a great honor that was done me. M. Langlois was the historical mind. Nothing less. Nothing more. Everything that is thought, being, always remained foreign to him. M. Andler was an altogether different man. He was not only a historical mind; he was a philosophical mind.
One may be opposed, one may be diametrically contrary to the ideas of M. Andler, to the thought of M. Andler, to the method of M. Andler, to the system of M. Andler; one must admit that at least he followed his line, and that his is a life all of one piece. M. Andler taught us that one has no right to treat a subject, nor even to speak of it, until one has exhausted the documentation and the literature of that subject. At least here is a man who follows the teachings he gives. M. Andler will not give us a Goethe before having exhausted the literature and documentation on Goethe. He will not give us his Nietzsche before having exhausted the literature and documentation on Nietzsche.
Quite different is the situation, quite different the career of M. Lanson. M. Lanson is like Raphael; he has several manners. Three. Until forty, which is too often forgotten, M. Lanson was a professor of secondary education who asked nothing better than to leave secondary education. When from his rhetoric class he was appointed to the Ecole Normale, he naturally gave his last class. He addressed to his students a sort of allocation, in such a tone, telling them that they surely realized he was quite happy to be leaving them for the Ecole Normale, that these youngsters were so wounded that today still, after nearly twenty years, they cannot speak of it to me without suddenly becoming angry at the feeling they had of finding themselves in the presence of a man with bad manners.
The second career of M. Lanson, his career in higher education, is too famous for me to dwell on it. I was precisely at the Ecole Normale when M. Lanson came to teach there. I still remember as though I were there those long, punctual, serious lessons on the history of French theater, which plunged us into a stupor of admiration. I say it without any irony. That was real work. He had read, he knew everything that had been published or performed or both in theater in France or in French up to Corneille. And lessons of admirable composition and sequence. A closely woven fabric. Everything held together. He knew everything. And one knew everything.
A catastrophe arrived. It was Corneille. We were plodding along that long path of the history of French theater. But however slowly one goes, one always ends up arriving. We arrived in that country called Corneille. How we broke our noses at the foot of that cliff — that is what one would have to manage to show in Confessions. Like a patient who feels the crisis coming and tells himself that this time it is certainly not that, and it is certainly nothing — and he knows the opposite very well — and he knows very well that it is that — and he takes heart, and tries to think of something else. In vain. Thus we took heart and tried to make ourselves believe that this Corneille was perhaps not Corneille. Who knows? That capital rising on the horizon, that capital we were approaching, perhaps it was not the capital Corneille. Who has not known the sweetness of M. Lanson does not know what sweetened vinegar is; and gall in preserves. I still have in my ear the sweetness with which M. Lanson began to speak of Corneille; tried to speak of Corneille.
At the single name of Corneille, everything that had preceded vanished. At that single name of Corneille, suddenly a wind of liberation blew over us. So it was Corneille. This time we had arrived. We knew what we were talking about. They tried to quarrel with the Cid, calling Guilhem de Castro to the rescue. But everyone had understood that the one who best understands the Cid is the one who takes the Cid at the level of the text; in the abrasion of the text; and above all the one who does not know the history of French theater.
An equally grave and no doubt more tragic point of trial in the second career of M. Lanson was his denial of Brunetiere. In this ocean of ingratitude that is the modern world, I know of, and perhaps one cannot find, a second example of such ingratitude; of such turpitude; of such villainy.
They owed everything to Brunetiere. And a single one remained faithful to him. There was a whole generation, a whole promotion, a whole bench that had been formed by Brunetiere, who owed everything to Brunetiere, who without Brunetiere did not exist. Bedier alone remained faithful to him.
M. Lanson was one of the nurslings of Brunetiere; and one of those who owed the most to Brunetiere; and one of those who owed everything to Brunetiere. One should not think that M. Lanson is an ungrateful nature. As long as M. Brunetiere was powerful, M. Lanson did not hide from the belated populations the admiration, the worship, the gratitude he had for M. Brunetiere. But when the star of M. Brunetiere began to decline in the intellectual and political heavens, M. Lanson did not hide from the peoples that he had just realized that this Brunetiere was not precisely a critic and a writer of republican defense. The truth above all.
Little does it matter to me after that whether the man is talented or not. What does it matter, being talented? For me nothing counts beside this base and sly ingratitude, and this denial of a master who had become unhappy. What do the cleverness matter; and the successes of cleverness. What does temporal advancement matter. It is in envy and ingratitude that a being is measured. Everything disappears before these crossroads of ingratitude and before this renunciation of a master and a father who has become unhappy.
We have been holding fast since 1905 and it will be necessary to rally and hold even better and hold perfectly to the end.
We are required to put ourselves, or rather to have put ourselves, at a point of maximum exasperation and to stay there firmly, and as it were comfortably, and as it were easily, as in a state that would not be one of tension. Without ever, without in any way relaxing. Without ever resting.
It is the triumph of the as if. We are asked to be tense to the maximum and to do everything else and live everything else as if we were not tense.
I do not know, to continue speaking objectively, whether any people has ever been subjected to this regime. It is properly a regime of war in peacetime. One should not say it is the regime of the armed peace. One should rather say it is the regime of the loaded war. It is certain and evident that on the one hand this regime is much more unbearable than the regime of peace. But I would not be surprised if it were more unbearable than the regime of war itself. A war has, after all, its releases, and so to speak its shots fired and its drops in potential.
It may be said that since the creation of the world one had never seen a people keep eight or nine hundred thousand men under arms in peacetime. And one might as well say a million. And one had doubtless never seen a people, in the modern sense of this word, impose on itself in peacetime a war tax of more than one billion.
Such are the conditions that have been made for us. Not only does the price of a life, the price of a soul, the price of a salvation remain eternally the same, but in the temporal calculation itself it is permissible to say, speaking objectively as they say, that in the history of the whole world one would have difficulty finding an epoch as grave as the one in which we have lived since 1905.
What I admire most is the devout, who worry about this, who worry about that, and who have only one fear: that the operator might be found wanting. They have little understanding of those marvelous compensations of spiritual quantities. It is true that since the beginning of the world, the modern world is the most contrary thing ever found to the rules of salvation. But by one of those marvelous compensations that never astonish anyone but the devout, at the very time that the modern world was forming as a system the most contrary that had ever been found to the rules of salvation, at that same time it was the very forms of the modern world — I mean its physiological forms and its mold, so to speak — that were becoming the very rules of salvation. Disciplines are asked for: here is one. Never had a world rebelled to this degree against the voluntary rules of salvation. And never had a world been so narrowly placed within these same involuntary rules. Everything that it had been necessary to invent in other times is now given to us as the very form in which we are constrained to move. And if a single life suffices to work out one’s salvation, what will it be to have two? Now we have two to sustain. And we are required, and we are obliged to provide for both. Because we are under the reign of money and by that growing economic tightening of which I spoke in the last cahier, we are so constrained to the virtue of poverty that to tell the truth we have come to be constrained to the super-virtue of misery. And this is our virtue of peacetime. And at the same time we are held to the highest virtue of wartime, which is the unknowing of tomorrow.
CHARLES PEGUY