The poet and essayist Charles Péguy (1873-1914) was born into a remarkable generation of French literary figures – one that included such luminaries as André Gide, Paul Valéry, Marcel Proust, Paul Claudel, and Romain Rolland, among others - (…) all of them deeply affected by the tumultuous years of the Dreyfus Affair (1897-1900) and the human tragedy of the Great War (1914-1918).