It was such a restoration of humanity to the wholesome and beautiful life for which it was made, that he had at first sought in socialism; and the earlier numbers of the _Cahiers de la Quinzaine_, of which he was the founder and editor, reflect this faith. He saw socialism then in its ideal aspect, as a triumph of justice and love: a reasonable career offered to the whole race. For this triumph, this reordering of the common life, he never ceased to work; but a deeper experience taught him that it could not be effected by any change imposed on society from without, or any readjustment between man and man. The readjustment needed was that between man and God; a change of heart, a rearrangement of the values of life effected from within, which should make possible the complete spiritualization of existence. Therefore it was that Péguy became, in his last and most creative period, a Christian mystic of an original type; an ardent missionary, who opposed the intellectualism, materialism, and individualism which France of the early twentieth century mistook for progress, by a propaganda which was anti-intellectual, nationalist, and profoundly Catholic. It is to this period that his poetry and much of his most vehement prose belongs. All is didactic in intention; but is saved by its author’s wit, sincerity, and remarkable imaginative genius from the usual fate of those who try to turn art to the purposes of edification. The prose is largely controversial, and inevitably suffers to some extent from this: for Péguy was violent and sometimes unjust when attacking the errors and follies of the time, and had at his disposal an astonishing power of mockery, irony, and scorn. Yet even here, his instinct for beauty constantly asserted itself: and in the midst of some biting attack upon “progressive” politics or modernist theology, we get an abrupt invasion of loveliness which transports us to the atmosphere of his poems. These poems fall into two groups: first, the three _Mystères_ which he wrote for the 500th anniversary of the birth of Jeanne d’Arc, “la sainte la plus grande après Sainte Marie,” and which deal with her spiritual preparation for the saving of France; _La Charité de Jeanne d’Arc_ (1910), _Le Porche du Mystère de la Deuxième Vertu_ (1911), _Les Saints Innocents_ (1912). These are all written in unrhymed irregular verse; a verse so indefinite in construction that it is often indistinguishable from rhythmic prose. They consist chiefly in long meditative discourses, alternating between the extremes of homeliness and sublimity, and put into the mouths of Jeanne and of Madame Gervaise, a Franciscan nun to whom she tells her problems and her dreams—an apt device for the conveyance of Péguy’s own religious and patriotic gospel. They were followed by three volumes in rhymed duodecasyllabic verse, which he called _Tapisseries: Sainte Geneviève et Jeanne d’Arc_ (1912), _Notre Dame_ (1913), and _Eve_ (1914), perhaps his finest and most sustained