247 - [PÉGUY]. GAULMIER, Jean. Péguy and Us.

[PÉGUY]. GAULMIER, Jean. Péguy and Us. An essay published in 1944 in the context of the Free French Forces in the Levant, offering a reinterpretation of Péguy’s work in response to the Vichy regime’s co-opting of his figure. Beirut, Problèmes français, 1944. In-12 brochure (170 x 120 mm), stapled, brown cover printed in black, untrimmed. 54 pages. Stitched cover, some foxing. Second edition published in the “Problèmes français” series, founded in Beirut by the Orientalist Jean Gaulmier (1905–1997), in the context of Free France in the Levant. Through a compilation of excerpts from his work, the author offers a reinterpretation of Péguy from the perspective of mystical resistance, patriotism, and intellectual freedom, in response to the Vichy regime’s misleading appropriation of his figure between 1940 and 1944. “The texts we present here—texts of struggle, for Péguy was above all a polemicist—will set the record straight” (J. Gaulmier). Contents: On War, Capitulation, and Betrayal; On the Leadership of the Elderly; On the Bourgeois Order and Hypocrisy; On Freedom and Totalitarian Coercion; The Limits of State Powers; On the Republic and, in particular, on Alsace-Lorraine; On the Jews; On Germany; A Letter from Bergson on Péguy. Good copy, uncut.