Charles Peguy (7 January 1873-5 September 1914) was a French Christian socialist poet who was killed in battle during World War I.
Biography[]
Charles Peguy was born in Orleans, France in 1873 to a poor family, and he attended the École normale supérieure, where he became a "Dreyfusard" during the Dreyfus affair. He joined the French Socialist Party in 1895, contributed to a socialist literary magazine supportive of Jean Jaures, and later became a nationalist and believing but non-practicing Roman Catholic, leading to him seeing Jaures as a traitor to the nation and socialism. He joined the French Army at the start of World War I, serving in the French 276th Infantry Regiment and dying from a shot to the head at the First Battle of the Marne in September 1914.