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]

These statements of Péguy are supported by active actions. He participated in the creation of the magazine Revue du Palais, later renamed the Grand Revue. Campaigning for subscribers, he calls this publication a "true journal" and hopes for its significant contribution to the formation of "socialist philosophy." [27]

On May 14, 1897, Péguy created the "Circle for the Study and Propaganda of Socialism for Students and Former Students" at the École Normale Supérieure. Such circles were supposed to be created both in Paris and in the provinces. The declaration of the circle states, in particular: "We want to spread scientific socialism, based on three foundations: the study of reality both in the past and in the present; a sense of justice and a sense of solidarity between like-minded citizens; national socialism, as it relates to the democratic traditions of the French Revolution and the great popular movements of that century; and international socialism, since it pursues the interests not only of France, but of all mankind... We appeal to socialists as well as to those who, being ill-informed, hesitate in their choices..." [28] The circle was formed around the journal Revue Socialist, whose program from May 1894 (when Georges Renard became director of the magazine) began to have a reformist-socialist character. From February 1897 to February 1898, he published a number of articles in which, in one way or another, the issues of the structure of socialist society were touched upon.

Baudouin and Péguy's youthful dreams of a world socialist republic were embodied in one of Péguy's first major artistic and philosophical works entitled "Marseille, or the First Dialogue on the City of Harmony". This work is a tribute to the memory and love of a deceased friend, who forever remained "the great friendly affection of Péguy".

On June 7, 1896, during their last meeting, the friends discussed the structure of the City of Harmony. On July 25 of the same year, M. Baudouin died, and Marseille was completed in 1898, but was dated 1896 (the year of Marcel Baudouin's death). It was published under the pseudonym Pierre Baudouin. Marcel Péguy in the article preceding the Dialogue (1973 edition) believes (and provides a number of proofs for this) that Marseille is nothing more than Péguy's embodiment of his deceased friend's plan, that is, that the City of Harmony is the brainchild of M. Baudouin. In Péguy's papers, 5 cover layouts were found with titles respectively: "Henri, Dialogue de l'individu" (Henri, Dialogue de l'individu), "Vincent, Dialogue de la cité", "Jacques, Dialogue de la cité juste" (Jacques, Dialogue de la cité juste), "Jean, Dialogue on the City of Mercy" (Jean. Dialogue de la cité charitable) and, finally, "Marcel, Deuxième dialogue de la cité harmonieuse" (Marcel, the Second Dialogue on the City of Harmony), dated 1898 and subtitled "On Action for the City". These models seem to testify to Péguy's plans, and if the First Dialogue on the City of Harmony belonged to his friend, then the Second was to be Péguy's own work, and, given the subtitle and the previous four dialogues, he did not have in mind a utopia, but a consistent path of social reconstruction of society. Unfortunately, no trace of Péguy's work on these five dialogues has been found. We can only compare the "City of Harmony" with the "City of Socialism". The article "On the City of Socialism" (De la cité socialiste) was published by Péguy in the journal Revue Socialist in August 1897 under the pseudonym Pierre Deloire. This article is much more modest than the "Dialogue" not only in terms of volume, but also in terms of the scale of the tasks that the author sets for the builders of his City.

The dialogue does not concern the political organization of society, it touches very little on the economic and material aspects of the issue. Basically, we are talking about the spiritual and intellectual development of citizens. Conventionally, "Dialogue" can be divided into several sections, in which Leahi consistently describes the moral laws that govern different aspects of society.

Perhaps Marcel Péguy is right when he asserts that the idea of the City of Harmony belongs to Marcel Baudouin. There is no doubt, however, that as a work of fiction the Dialogue is entirely Péguy's creation. This is evidenced by his style, Péguy's characteristic style, which can never be confused with anyone else's. Endless repetitions create the impression of a tight ball. Péguy does not let the reader forget for a second what is most important to him. All sections are linked together by these basic ideas. Everything begins and ends at one point.

Many years later, Péguy, who had lost many illusions and abandoned utopias, would not forget his City. We will find this word more than once in his works. And it will always mean a community of people united by moral ideals.