Undoubtedly, the most precious spiritual qualities of the writer began to form in childhood. Péguy wrote in his essay "Money" that by the time a person turns 12 years old, everything has already been decided.

So, Charles Péguy was born on January 7, 1873 in the suburb of Orleans, Bourgogne. His father, Désiré Péguy, a carpenter by profession, died shortly after the birth of his son from wounds sustained in the war of 1870. After the death of his father, Charles was raised by his mother, a chair weaver, and his grandmother, a simple peasant woman. Péguy grew up surrounded by two women who, through hard and hard work (little Charles was very proud that his mother was the best craftswoman in the district and she was entrusted with the most difficult work) managed to protect the boy from hunger, instilling in him respect for work and hatred for poverty. He grew up among small artisans and merchants, inhabitants of the suburbs, many of whom had participated in the recent war. He had heard many stories filled with anger and pain for the violated honor of France. These stories were intertwined with legends about the former glory and exploits of compatriots. Let us not forget that Péguy grew up in Orleans, a city inextricably linked with the name of the Virgin Liberator, where festivities dedicated to Joan of Arc were held annually in May, and the church of Saint-Anian, of which little Péguy was a parishioner, bore the name of the bishop who went out alone to meet Attila's army and stopped it with his prayers.

Let us also remember that 1870 is not only the year of France's defeat in the war, but also the year of the Republic. Thus, Hugo, with one expression "terrible year", united both the triumph of the Prussians and the defeat of the Commune. As a boy, Péguy was friends with a neighbor, a carpenter, a republican, and this was his first teacher. For him, national freedom became inseparable from political freedom. Of course, over time, Péguy's idea of freedom changed, or rather, deepened, but its origins lie in the suburb of Bourgogne. Many years later, in 1912, in the poem "Clio II", he wrote:

"You are happy, Péguy," History tells him, "you have been involved... Your confession will not be lost, you will give us a testimony... what this noble France and, it must be added, this noble Republic were. You've touched a time when people were hiding, sneaking away a copy of Vengeance. [6] It is this lifelong memory that will not allow you to reconcile yourself to any tyranny, be it radical or clerical." [7] In 1880, Péguy entered the preparatory school at the École Normale Supérieure in the Loire department. Students of the Normal School taught here, and they put into their work not only all the ardor of youth, but also the desire to get rid of the inertia of the old education, to create a new school. This is how Péguy recalls his childhood years of study: "Our young vicars told us something exactly opposite to what our young teachers-students said." [8] But so far, such contradictions did not touch the little student too much. This is how Pegy the schoolboy is described by his old friend D. Halévy:

"He naively and recklessly accepted everything that was offered to him: care for the house, common sense, patriotism and civic duty inspired by the school, charity and faith inspired by the church. A diligent student of catechism and a diligent student at school, he was a child with a high forehead, a clear straight look, the first in everything. Teachers watch him and support him. His mother, ambitious and domineering, who knows his worth, works fifteen hours a day to give him freedom and a future." [9] At the age of 14, Péguy entered a trade school, but soon left it. "Péguy should learn Latin," says one of his former teachers and wins a municipal scholarship for him. Péguy entered the Lycée d'Orléans. This is the end of his childhood, which he reproduces magnificently and in detail, with that attention to detail and piercing sadness that are given only by love, in the autobiographical work "Pierre" (1898).

From 1891, Péguy studied at the Lycée Lacanal in Sault near Paris: the same teachers who had decided that Péguy should study Latin now recommended that he continue his education outside of Orléans.

In October 1893, Péguy continued his studies at the School of St. Barbara, where he prepared to enter the École Normale Supérieure. The first attempt was unsuccessful, and Péguy devoted a year to military service near Orleans (1892–1893). Then the young man returned to the School of St. Barbara, and in 1894, he finally entered the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. Péguy considers the years of study to be the best period in his life: "Two or three of the most wonderful years of our youth, fiery years; everything was clean then, everything was young..." [10] He, who had always been lonely, suddenly became the center of a circle of young, full of strength and hope, noble people. The story of one of them, Ernest Taraud (Jérôme), explains the power that Péguy acquired over them without doing anything special for this: "He felt happy in this courtyard, where the first of his talents was fully manifested: to unite people around him, to influence them, or, to be more precise, to imagine their lives with them... He took us all to an amazing future, where we felt like heroes and gods. He deliberately exaggerated the small talents that were instilled in us... Péguy wanted to see us more exalted, and his imagination left a golden gleam on each of us. And if one or another of us managed to do something good, then there is a particle of Péguy in it, albeit unconscious..." [11] But this is not at all evidence of some kind of beautiful soul of Péguy, but an expression of trust and respect for people of his generation, to whom he felt as much responsibility as to his family, homeland or era. A curious remark is made by Rolland: "Péguy strictly limited the circle of his closest friends, allowing only "peers" to join it." [12] He dedicated the following lines to the friendship of people of the same generation: "Due to the fact that an unbridgeable abyss separates the present from the past, it is necessary to choose friends only among people of your time and age, your circle, your class. Friendship is an amazingly full-blooded feeling that is given to us once in a lifetime and never happens again. Friendship is a highly earthly, unique feeling, connected with a certain time in a person's life, with certain places where he lived... Friendship is a phenomenon of the same order as infancy, family, people, homeland, epoch – all the events that determine our life; Friendship is not that sphere of human relations where the brilliance of genius or the seal of grace can compensate for the traits that are absent in a person, which are cultivated by the long-term influence of a certain environment. No genius will help if people are not connected by a similar childhood, a common homeland, environment, time, place..." [13] Knowing Péguy's biography, it is impossible to reject the idea that these lines were caused by the memory of a man whose influence on Péguy was decisive. At the school of St. Barbara, he met Marcel Baudouin. "A strange young man, shy to the point of sickness, secretive, of insignificant appearance, immersed in himself... He walked sideways, pulling his head into his shoulders and putting one foot directly in front of the other, like a man walking along the edge of the sidewalk... In lectures, everywhere he retained his absent appearance." [14] And "this lunatic Baudouin" won the heart of the "strong, somewhat ponderous" young peasant. "Péguy almost always took him by the hand, standing in the line that we formed as we walked around the courtyard," writes Tarot, and explains the influence that this "man reminiscent of Gérard de Nerval, mysterious and charming, as if marked with the seal of fate" had on Péguy by the nearness of his death. Rolland wrote about the almost religious mystery that shrouded the fusion of the souls of both friends: "One of them, Marcel Baudouin, died in the prime of life, the other, our Péguy, for many years stubbornly called himself by the name of the deceased (he signed his works - Pierre Baudouin), just as Montaigne wrapped himself in La Boétie's cloak. No doubt Péguy made a secret vow, and for a long time he kept it, to do everything to keep the thought of his dead friend alive in him." [15]

Péguy's eldest son, named Marcel in honor of Baudouin (he was the nephew of M. Baudouin, since soon after the death of his friend Péguy he married his sister), believed that "Baudouin wanted to transform society according to his own ideas, and by his example he helped... my father to seriously think about some plans for reforms, which he, for his part, had nurtured before, but until now, due to lack of self-confidence, considered unimportant and purely speculative." [16]

These "certain transformations" mentioned in the letter of Péguy's son were, of course, socialist in nature. It is believed that it was Marcel Baudouin who first instilled the socialist ideals of Péguy, whose consciousness was deeply religious from childhood. Many researchers define Péguy's worldview as "socialist mysticism" and associate it with "an atmosphere of mystical love for a dead youth." [17] There is no shortage of evidence for Charles Péguy of Marcel Baudouin's unusual importance. These are Péguy's letters to Marcel Baudouin, and the testimonies of contemporaries, and numerous direct and indirect references to Marcel in Péguy's texts. These testimonies about this period of Péguy's life somewhat contradict an interesting thesis put forward by the French scientist A. Drü: "What Péguy owed to this man is now difficult to establish, but this can be guessed from other friendly relations of Péguy, for example, with Herre, Sorel, Halévy, Maritain, Benda and others. All of Péguy's work... This is a never-ending dialogue between him and his friends. He listened to them and learned from them, and they often made the mistake of thinking that they had a decisive influence on his life, on his work, when he suddenly appeared before them in such a new capacity that they could not even imagine. In the end, he still walked his own path, even when he was all alone and no one was following him." [18] The above judgment of A. Drew deserves attention. In fact, the rest of Péguy's life confirms it. No matter how Péguy treated his relatives, friends, like-minded people, teachers, colleagues, he never compromised his beliefs. Péguy's relations with people were based not on attachments, not on attachments, not on friendly feelings, but on the unity of ideas, a single worldview. He could admire Jaurès and Renan, but he could also renounce friendship with the former and reverence for the latter if he felt that their views differed.

Together with Marcel Baudouin, Péguy also studied at the École Normale Supérieure, where he entered in the last trimester of 1894. Romain Rolland, who studied there a few years earlier, tells in detail about this educational institution. He calls the Normal School "the monastery on Ulm Street": "Strict monastic rules allowed only occasional trips to the theater and vacations on Sundays during the daytime. The school administration was even reluctant to issue permits to listen to additional lectures in other higher educational institutions. The institution on Ulm Street, in its jealous pride, believed that it provided a fairly sufficient education. It was like a monastery where intellectual life flourished. Long galleries closed an uncomfortable garden with a pool in the middle. A doorkeeper was on duty at the entrance to the school... There were about one hundred and thirty or one hundred and forty of us, young intellectuals who studied literature and exact sciences; we enjoyed exclusive privileges... There was a wonderful library where you could wander around and disappear all day long... Three years of apprenticeship turned into a harsh and delightful game of the mind, which eluded tutelage and rushed in search of discoveries, a mind that reared up to throw off the pedantic bridle of licentiate and candidate's examinations, which had to be passed in the first and third years of study... But the second year was such a paradise! Think as much as you want... Is there a greater happiness in the world? It was the Telham abode of reason..." [19]

In this abode of reason, they taught excellently. Because of the closed nature of the education system at the École Normale, teachers did not deal with a large and rather random audience, as at the Sorbonne, for example, and therefore did not have to reckon with the unpredictable reaction of an anonymous crowd. Romain Rolland fondly recalled his alma mater: "Now, half a century later, I think with a feeling of gratitude and admiration of the magnificent gift that the democratic system of education gives to selected young people, I admire the powerful minds that enlighten and guide the youth." [20] But the most important thing about the École Normale for Péguy was not education, but the happy community of young people that later formed a special "generation of 1903". The core of this generation was the graduates of the École Normale. All of them, along with France, had one fatherland, the École Normale. Marcel Baudouin and Péguy belonged to the generation of which Romain Rolland writes: "This generation with stupid credulity entertained illusions about Progress, about the Great Human Being of the positivists, about the imminent, inevitable, Providential victory without bloody battles, about Democracy, Law, Justice, Freedom, the goodness of life (that was the time of the "good artist", "good sculptor", "good writer", "good musician", kind man and simply good, and also the time when they believed: "A good man will come... tomorrow"). God forbid, I'm not going to laugh at these illusions! It was a painful tragedy." [21]

So, as a student, Péguy found himself at the center of a group of young people imbued with socialist ideas. This circle, however, did not at all resemble a political organization. They, as the already mature Péguy wrote, "did not have a very clear idea of what socialism was... imagined that socialism is the totality of everything that prepares the social revolution, and believed that this social revolution should lead to the happiness of mankind..." [22] Péguy knew the socialist doctrine itself rather poorly and did not try to study it more deeply. It should be noted that Péguy and his friends studied socialism, of course, not according to Marx. They were greatly influenced by the works of J. Jaurès, J. Guesde, as well as their interpreter L. Herr, a librarian of the École Normale, whom Péguy considered his direct teacher.

It should be noted that by the end of the 19th century, the working class began to play an ever-increasing role in France, and the spread of socialist ideas increased. Already in 1890, a workers' party was formed; in 1893, socialists J. Guesde, E. Vaillant, J. Jaurès and others were elected to parliament. And in 1905, the French United Socialist Party was created. The influence of socialism on the minds of the French intelligentsia is growing. "People talk about it, write about it, and our whole society is engaged in it," noted A. France in 1892. [23]

But not all cultural figures understood the meaning of socialist doctrine in the same way. For example, C. Péguy and R. Rolland saw in it a moral force designed to renew society morally, while J. Renard, for example, adhered to a kind of "socialism of feelings". Alain Fournier and Jacques Rivière saw socialist transformations only as a struggle for the achievement of material benefits, while Maurice Barrès tried to present socialism not as a scientific theory, but as a kind of new religion. This divergence in the interpretation of socialism was partly due to disagreements among the French socialists themselves. Gradually, these disagreements caused a split in the Socialist Party, aggravated by the Dreyfus affair. Nevertheless, socialist ideas were increasingly taking over society. J.-R. Blok considered socialism at that time to be the only refuge "for faith, for enthusiasm, for collective selflessness..." Despite the utopian nature of Péguy's socialist views, his attitude to this issue was very serious. At the end of April 1895, he wrote in a letter to his friend Camille Bideau: "The events that took place at the celebration of the centenary of the École Normale [24] forced the students to take certain positions on political and social questions. I officially consider myself a socialist." [25] On October 10 of the same year, Péguy again wrote to C. Bideau: "A few months ago I announced to you my full and official accession to socialism. I assure you that the universal conversion of the young (I mean the best) to socialism is a fundamental phenomenon. To put it in a nutshell, I hope that it will result in a movement at least as significant as the French Revolution or the Christian Revolution. You know it's not my rule to light up in vain." [26]