Charles PÉGUY (1873-1914). Autograph manuscript signed, [1903]; 12pages in-8. Reflections on popularity and orators; long addition to the article Reprise politique parlementaire, which occupies most of the twentieth issue of the fourth series of Cahiers de la Quinzaine, June 16, 1903, entitled Affaire Dreyfus. "Not only do the philosopher, the artist and the scholar not reign, but they are not popular; and the greater they are, the less popular they are; they are not of the same order with the people as are the popular, the orator, the comedian, the parliamentarian, the singer, the conductor; the great philosopher, the great artist, the great scholar does not reign, when a small orator reigns. In their modesty, in their patience, in their sadness, in the seriousness, in the difficulty of their work, there is a background of bitterness that makes them unpopular and ungrateful. People want us to be smarter than that, and to act smart. It's almost impossible for a truly great philosopher to be popular. Artists who have become popular have done so in opposition to their art. What people love in a great scientist, when they love a great scientist like Pasteur, is not science itself and not the scientist, it's not the tirelessly pursued investigation of nature, it's not a life of methodical, intelligent work, scientific and artistic, it's not the continuity of inquiry and the constancy of life, it's, on the contrary, that which is most contrary to the scientific spirit, it's the marvellous, the miraculous, fortuitous, indeterminate, fatal, or fatalistic; it is all that is unscientific, artistic or natural in artistic or scientific work, in the genius of invention or discovery, in the joy of external discovery, or in the misfortune of disappointment, in the joy or misfortune of this inner discovery or disappointment that is the strength or weakness of combination, of invention, invention being in this sense an inner discovery; to invent is to discover within oneself, in a greater native wealth of combinations, in more flexibility, in more variety, the joint that other researchers had not yet discovered within themselves. [...] People love artists and scientists when they think they are clever. On the contrary, the orator, the comedian, the tribune, the conductor reign directly [...] The preacher also reigns, being an orator; and there is much more of the preacher in the other species of orators than is generally believed; [......] Of all orators, the preacher is the one who exercises most and best, most abundantly, most sumptuously, most comfortably the authority of oratorical command; so he is of all orators the one whom others secretly, consciously or unconsciously envy, and on whom they most willingly model themselves. More and more, partly for this reason, major speeches, even popular ones, are becoming preachings, and major meetings - often the most revolutionary, as they claim to be - are becoming veritable preachings [...] Meetings have ritually become vespers. The Internationale replaces the Magnificat. Speakers all tend to exercise the authority of oratorical command like the preacher"... Etc. Œuvres complètes en prose (Bibl. de la Pléiade), t.I, p.1148-1152.