ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author starts with a general examination of his unique polemical techniques, and looks in particular at his attacks on the politician Jean Jaures. The impression is given of the author being so carried away that he is forced to interrupt what is going on in order to appeal to the reader. One of the aspects which most immediately strike the reader of Peguy’s works is relentless use of repetition. One of the most original characteristics of Peguy’s polemical prose is the impression of spontaneity which it engenders; an impression, one must stress, because the techniques by which it is achieved are subtle and varied, and the tone is carefully calculated. In Peguy’s case, the readers of the Cahiers de la Quinzaine were an immediately identifiable audience. The new tone which the people saw emerging in 1904 characterises Peguy’s later retrospective survey of the Dreyfus Affair and its aftermath, ‘Notre jeunesse’, written in 1910.
