3 play Wagner as well as that . . . Potain: the music of the German composer Richard Wagner (1813–83) became particularly popular in France in the late 1870s. Francis Planté (1839–1934) was a French pianist and composer whose concerts drew significant audiences in the 1870s; Anton Grigorievitch Rubinstein (1825–94) was one of the finest pianists of the nineteenth century and founded the conservatories of St Petersburg and Moscow. Pierre-Charles-Edouard Potain (1825–1901) was a celebrated cardiologist elected to the French Academy of Medicine in 1882 and to the Institut de France in 1893. That Madame Verdurin should hold that her ‘young pianist’ and Dr Cottard are ‘streets ahead’ of these luminary figures in their respective fields is an early indication of the somewhat blinkered over-confidence of the hostess in her coterie.
Madame de Crécy: Odette, as the narrator learns much later, in The Captive, goes at this time by the name of Madame de Crécy as the result of an earlier marriage to Pierre de Verjus, Comte de Crécy, a man whose wealth, according to the narrator’s source, Odette drained to the last centime before separating from him.
4 ride of the Valkyrie . . . prelude to Tristan: the
Ride of the Valkyries (the plural is now generally used) is one of Wagner’s best-known compositions: it features at the opening of the third act of
Die Walküre, the second opera in Wagner’s four-part epic cycle
Der Ring des Nibelungen (
The Ring of the Nibelung, first performed as a cycle in 1876). ‘
Tristan’ refers to Wagner’s earlier, hugely influential opera,
Tristan and Isolde, first performed in 1865.
5 fishing for compliments: Odette is in the habit of dropping English words and phrases into conversation, an affectation which she believes brings an allure of culture and mystique. We have italicized these where they appear in the text.
6 naturalization papers: the mention here of official documents confirming Swann’s status as a naturalized French citizen is a reminder of his complex identity as Jewish, French, and as an unusual individual who moves back and forth between quite distinct social milieux.
8 when I began to take an interest: this is the first of a small number of intrusions of the first-person pronoun into the narration of
Swann in Love, which is otherwise focalized exclusively on Charles Swann. The ‘I’ in question (as outlined in the Introduction) is the narrator-hero of
In Search of Lost Time, the much longer novel of which
Swann in Love is part. Since its events pre-date the birth of the narrator of Proust’s longer novel,
Swann in Love is effectively a lengthy flashback, which fills in the backstory to the life of Charles Swann, who is an influential figure for Proust’s narrator.
9 Quel est donc ce mystère? |
Je n’y puis rien comprendre: ‘What then is this mystery? | I can’t make head nor tail of it.’ The grandfather here is quoting lines from the end of the first act of
La Dame Blanche (1825), a comic opera by François-Adrien Boieldieu, with a libretto by Eugène Scribe based on scenes from a variety of works by Sir Walter Scott.
Vision fugitive: ‘fugitive vision’. Allusion to an aria sung by Herod in Jules Massenet’s opera Hérodiade (1881).
Dans ces affaires | Le mieux est de ne rien voir: ‘in these matters | it is best not to see anything’. A quotation from the closing lines of André Grétry’s comic opera Amphitryon (1786), which itself echoes Molière’s comedy of the same title. By humming snatches of music from works that deal with complex amorous affairs involving mystery, betrayal, and deception, the narrator’s grandfather is gently mocking Swann’s way of conducting his own affairs.
12 Vermeer of Delft: Johannes (or Jan) Vermeer (1632–75) is recognized as one of the finest painters of the Dutch Golden Age. Little known in his lifetime and with only thirty-four works attributed to his name, Vermeer was rediscovered by scholars in the nineteenth century. Proust saw the
View of Delft (1660–1) during a trip to Holland in 1902 and again towards the end of his life at an exhibition in Paris in 1921. In
The Captive, the fifth volume of
In Search of Lost Time, in a characteristic moment of one art-form illuminating another, the fictional writer Bergotte experiences a blissful aesthetic revelation of how he should have written his novels whilst contemplating the
View of Delft, shortly before expiring in front of the bewitching canvas.
Areopagus: a large outcrop of rock north-west of the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, which, prior to the fifth century bc, served as the site of the council of elders of the city. It later became the site of criminal trials. Odette’s reference to a frog here is unclear: a number of Jean de la Fontaine’s Fables (1668–94) include frogs, such as ‘Les grenouilles qui demandent un roi’ (‘The frogs who desired a king’), which is a rewriting of one of Aesop’s fables, but none features the Areopagus.
15 Sarah Bernhardt: ‘La divine Sarah’, as she came to be known, was the foremost theatrical actress of her era (1844–1923) and a cultural icon not only in France but across the globe, as a result of her touring widely. Bernhardt is referred to on a number of occasions in
In Search of Lost Time; she coexists with the actress ‘La Berma’, a fictional creation whose life displays many parallels with that of Bernhardt. ‘Golden voice’ (‘la voix d’or’) is the name reportedly given to the actress by Victor Hugo after her rousing performance in the role of the queen in his play
Ruy Blas in 1872.
20 the Ninth . . . the Meistersingers: just as she holds her pianist to be better than the most lauded practitioners of the time, as we learn on the opening page of
Swann in Love, here, by mentioning the finale of Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony (1824, the last he completed in his lifetime) and the overture to Wagner’s
Die Meistersinger von Nürnburg (
The Mastersingers of Nuremburg,
first performed 1868), Madame Verdurin is placing the sonata she has ‘discovered’ in the company of the very best-known parts of some of the most influential and celebrated musical compositions of her century.
neurasthenic symptoms: neurasthenia was a category used in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries to describe a range of ailments and complaints believed to be related to nervousness and often suffered in combination. Neurasthenia was the subject of a medical self-help book published by Proust’s father in collaboration with Gilbert Ballet in 1897: L’Hygiène du neurasthénique (How to Live with Neurasthenia). Proust himself displayed many symptoms that contemporary medicine diagnosed as neurasthenic, and the condition was often associated with hypersensitivity of the sort repeatedly displayed by the protagonist of In Search of Lost Time.
21 Beauvais: the name of the town in Picardy, in Northern France, is used attributively to describe tapestries, and furniture (often upholstered with tapestry), manufactured there since the seventeenth century. The Director of the Beauvais tapestry works produced a series of designs drawing on La Fontaine’s
Fables in the 1730s, though none of these includes Madame Verdurin’s ‘Bear and the Grapes’. She (or Proust) may be misremembering La Fontaine’s ‘L’ours et l’amateur des jardins’ (‘The Bear and the Gardener’) or ‘Le renard et les raisins’ (‘The Fox and the Grapes’).
22 sine materia: without substance (Latin). The phrase encapsulates the immaterial, evanescent nature of the pleasure imparted by the experience of listening to a piece of music.
25 Vinteuil: first encountered in ‘Combray’ as the old piano teacher who lives at Montjouvain, Vinteuil is a fictional figure (like the painter, Elstir, and the novelist, Bergotte).
26 di primo cartello: Italian term relating to performers of the very highest quality, who take ‘top billing’.
28 Gambetta’s funeral: Léon Gambetta (1838–82), lawyer and political leader, Prime Minister of France 1881–2; his state funeral took place on 6 January 1883.
Les Danicheff: a play first performed in 1876, Les Danicheff was a collaboration between Pierre de Corvin-Koukowsky and Alexandre Dumas fils.
where Monsieur Grévy lives: Jules Grévy (1807–91), President of France 1879–87.
31 Peter De Hooch: (1629–84), a contemporary of Vermeer and a major figure in seventeenth-century Dutch painting.
34 Notre-Dame de Laghet: Laghet is a place of Christian pilgrimage in the Alpes-Maritimes, near Nice where Odette used to live; the church and monastery were founded in the seventeenth century.
35 Sistine Chapel: Zipporah, daughter of Jethro and wife of Moses, appears in a fresco by Botticelli (?1455–1510) on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, depicting the ‘Life of Moses’.
35 Antonio Rizzo: the Correr Museum in Venice holds a bronze bust of Andrea Loredan (who was not in fact a
doge) by the Paduan sculptor Andrea Briosse (1471–1532), who was known as ‘il Riccio’ or ‘il Rizzo’.
Ghirlandaio: (1449–94), a Florentine Renaissance painter of the same generation as Botticelli. Michelangelo (1475–1564) was for a time an apprentice in Ghirlandaio’s workshop.
Tintoretto: (1518–94), a Venetian Renaissance painter whose self-portrait, with prominent nose, heavily bearded face, and ‘piercing gaze’, hung in the Louvre in Proust’s time.
37 La Maison Dorée: an elegant restaurant established in 1840 (which Proust sometimes renders La Maison d’Or). This and the other establishments mentioned subsequently (Prévost’s, Tortoni’s, and the Café Anglais) were all popular, respectable Parisian establishments.
the Paris-Murcia Fête: a fund-raising ‘fête’ held in Paris on 18 December 1879 following serious flooding in the province of Murcia in south-east Spain in October that year.
42 Eurydice: in Greek mythology, Eurydice, wife of Orpheus, was killed by a snake-bite on her wedding day. Orpheus, through the power of his singing, persuaded the Gods to allow him to bring Eurydice back from Hades, but they imposed the condition that he should not take a backward glance towards her as they climbed up from the underworld. Unable to resist the compulsion to turn back towards his beloved, Orpheus lost Eurydice a second time, for ever.
46 victoria: a four-wheeled, horse-drawn open carriage.
47 Tagliafico: the
Valse des Roses (
Waltz of the Roses) is the best-known composition of Olivier Métra (1830–89), who was notably the conductor at the Folies-Bergères in the 1870s. The
Pauvre fou (actually titled
Pauvres fous, ‘The Poor Lunatics’), is a song written by the French-Italian opera singer Joseph Dieudonné Tagliafico (1821–1900), who performed at the Théâtre des Italiens in Paris from the 1840s. That these pieces of music should be Odette’s ‘favourites’ gives a snapshot of what, to Swann and the elevated circles in which he habitually moves, are her undiscerning aesthetic tastes.
51 Watteau: Antoine Watteau (1684–1721), a major French painter of the eighteenth century, credited in particular with developing the genre known as ‘fêtes galantes’, outdoor scenes of playful, amorous adventures. In an essay on the painter Proust described his work as ‘the apotheosis of love and pleasure’.
in the style of the Vicomte de Borelli: Vicomte Raymond de Borrelli (1827–1906) — Proust misspells his name — was a society poet and, like the Valse des Roses, is here representative of Odette’s unrefined taste.
53 Hippodrome: a horse-racing arena in the Bois de Vincennes in Paris, established in 1863 and rebuilt in 1879 after significant damage during the Franco-Prussian war.
56 La Reine Topaze: comic opera by Victor Massé (1822–84), first performed in 1856.
57 Serge Panine: novel published in 1881 by George Ohnet (1848–1918), which was adapted for the stage the following year: it was enjoyed by the public but not by the critics.
Olivier Métra: conductor, composer of the Valse des Roses mentioned previously.
59 École du Louvre: establishment founded in 1881 for the training of museum conservators.
61 Blanche de Castille: (1188–1252), daughter of Alphonso VIII of Castille and Eleanor of England. She was Queen of France as wife of Louis VIII and regent during the reign of her son, Louis IX (1214–70), who was canonized Saint Louis in 1297.
62 Suger and other Saint Bernards: the
Chronicle of Saint-Denis (the popular title for the
Grandes chroniques de France), a history of the kings of France, was begun by the Abbé Suger (1081–1151) in the twelfth century. Brichot is somewhat confused with his ‘impeccably reliable source’ here, since both Suger and Bernard de Clairvaux (1091–1153, canonized in 1174) died more than thirty years before Blanche de Castille was born.
64 even better than Rembrandt or Hals: the painter here compares the contemporary canvases he has seen at the exhibition with long-established masterpieces whose accomplishment resists analysis:
The Night Watch (1642) by Rembrandt (1606–69) and
The Regentesses of the Old Men’s Almshouse, Haarlem (?1664) by Franz Hals (1580–1666).
the ‘Ninth’ and the Winged Victory: to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, previously mentioned as the archetypal masterpiece, is added The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike, discovered in 1863 on the island of Samothrace and exhibited in the Louvre since 1884.
66 Francillon: a recurring topic of conversation in the Verdurin circle is contemporary art, though, as is quite clear, the guests’ engagement is frequently superficial. Madame Cottard is keen to show that she is up-to-date here, by mentioning
Francillon (first performed in 1887) by Alexandre Dumas
fils, a play she has not yet seen. The play contains a scene where a ‘Japanese salad’ is prepared: it is a salad of cooked potatoes and mussels, dressed with olive oil, vinegar, a glass of Château d’Yquem, and finely sliced truffles. The name simply reflects the prevailing ‘japonisme’ of the period, the fascination with all things Japanese.
Le Maître de Forges: (The Owner of the Iron Works), a sentimental novel of 1882 by Georges Ohnet, whose Serge Panine is mentioned here and a little earlier in the text.
68 Palais de l’Industrie: (Palace of Industry), built for the World’s Fair in Paris in 1855. It was where the annual ‘Salons’ (exhibitions) of painting and
sculpture were held until it was demolished in 1897 to make way for the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, built for the World’s Fair of 1900 and still standing today.
68 the La Trémoïlles and the Laumes: two families are mentioned here: one real and one fictional. The La Trémoïlles were one of France’s oldest aristocratic families, with a history dating back to the eleventh century. The Laumes are Proust’s invention and similarly formidable in their history: they are a branch of the Guermantes family that lends its name to the third volume of Proust’s novel,
Le Côté de Guermantes (
The Guermantes Way). Since
Swann in Love narrates a time prior to Proust’s narrator’s childhood, readers of ‘Combray’, the preceding section of the novel, there encounter the Prince and Princesse des Laumes as the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes (titles inherited upon the death of the Prince’s father); their ancestral home lies adjacent to Combray, the village where the narrator’s family spend their summers during his childhood.
69 ‘That gentle anarchist Fénelon’: François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651–1715), theologian and tutor to Louis XIV’s grandson, the Duc de Bourgogne (1682–1712). Fénelon is described here playfully as a ‘gentle anarchist’ since some of his writings, including his book
Les Aventures de Télémaque (
The Adventures of Telemachus, 1699), intended for the instruction and education of the young Duc, contained criticisms of the reign of Louis XIV.
70 Those de la Trémouilles: Brichot inadvertently shows his ignorance here by mispronouncing Trémouïlles, without the diaeresis.
George Sand: nom de plume of the celebrated female novelist Amantine-Lucile-Aurore Dupin (1804–76). Sand’s novel François le Champi (1847) plays a pivotal role in the narrator’s childhood development in ‘Combray’.
71 Se non è vero: truncated version of the Italian ‘se non è vero è ben trovato’ — even if it’s not true, it’s a good story.
72 it’s not serpent à sonates: there is a play on words in the French here that alludes to an acquaintance of Proust’s. Marquise Diane de Saint-Paul was a gifted pianist with a reputation as an uncompromising gossip, known therefore as the ‘serpent à sonates’ or ‘sonata snake’, playing on the term for rattlesnake, ‘serpent à sonnettes’.
76 Gustave Moreau: 1826–98, best known as a Symbolist painter whose canvases lavishly depict mythological and biblical themes and motifs such as
Oedipus and the Sphinx (1864) or
Salomé (1876).
78 Île des Cygnes: ‘Island of the Swans’, an island in the larger of the two lakes in the Bois de Boulogne.
80 brougham: a four-wheeled, horse-drawn closed carriage, typically with two seats.
87 the painter of the ‘Primavera’: the reference is once again to Botticelli. The ‘Primavera’ (?1482) is one of his most celebrated works; also known in
English as the ‘Allegory of Spring’, it can be seen in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
88 watch Moses pour water into a trough: another allusion to Botticelli, this time to his
Madonna of the Pomegranate (?1487), also in the Uffizi, and to the
Life of Moses frescoes in the Sistine Chapel.
91 Moonlight Sonata: Beethoven’s Opus 27, no. 2, the Piano Sonata no. 14 in C sharp minor (composed in 1801), has, since the mid-nineteenth century, been popularly referred to as ‘the Moonlight Sonata’, after a critic likened the effect of the sonata’s first movement to moonlight on Lake Lucerne.
92 the peasant who is engaged in slaughtering it: the narrator here refers to an incident in ‘Combray’, the first part of
Swann’s Way, in which the child protagonist witnesses the family servant Françoise killing a chicken for the family table. Unexpectedly the child is suddenly plunged into the adult world of ethics: the woman he had hitherto considered to be saintly is seen to be capable of a violent act of slaughter, yet the young protagonist cannot condemn her actions outright since he realizes that he has long been a beneficiary of them, enjoying as he does the succulent roast chickens that Françoise prepares.
93 a play by Labiche: Eugène Labiche (1815–88), dramatic author of vaudeville and farce, whose plays poked fun at the bourgeoisie.
94 Plato and Bossuet, and the old system of education in France: Plato famously condemns artists on moral grounds in book ten of
Republic, which Bossuet (1627–1704), a theologian, moralist, and orator, cites in his
Maximes et réflexions sur la comédie (1694). French school education underwent major changes in the 1880s as a result of reforms and innovations implemented by Jules Ferry (1832–93), then Minister of Education.
the last circle of Dante: in Dante’s Divine Comedy (1320), the last (ninth) circle of Hell is reserved for those sinners guilty of treachery, the misdeed Swann is railing at here.
Noli me tangere: ‘Don’t touch me’ (Latin). Reported in John 20:17 as the words of Christ, spoken to Mary Magdalen after the resurrection.
96 Une nuit de Cléopâtre: opera (first performed in 1885) by Victor Massé, whose other works include
La Reine Topaze, previously mentioned.
101 Carte du Tendre: (‘the Map of Love’) in
Clélie (written between 1654 and 1660), Madame de Scudéry (1607–1701) incorporated an allegorical map of the different paths that can be taken to arrive at true love.
102 the reality of the external world or the immortality of the soul: Swann’s state here is likened to that of people who have ‘worn themselves out’ with philosophical reflection. Precisely such reflections fill the pages of Descartes (1596–1650), Pascal (1623–62), and Kant (1724–1804), thinkers with whose work Proust was familiar; these preoccupations are also those we encounter as we are plunged into the thoughts of Proust’s restless narrator on the very first page of
Swann’s Way.
102 Philippe le Beau . . . Margaret of Austria: the church at Brou, in Bourg-en-Bresse, was built on the order of Marguerite of Austria (1480–1530) to commemorate her husband, Philibert le Beau (1480–1504), Duc de Savoie, who was killed in a hunting accident.
103 ‘Bal des Incohérents’: the ‘Ball of the Incoherents’, a public event first held in Paris in 1885. The ‘Incoherents’ were artists who mocked the official ‘Salon’ exhibitions and staged very successful exhibitions of their own, the opening of which was marked by a costumed ball.
106 landau: a four-wheeled, horse-drawn, convertible carriage.
Bayreuth: by the 1880s the annual Bayreuther Festspiele (Bayreuth Festival), dedicated to performances of Wagner’s works in a specially designed concert-house inaugurated in 1876, was a fashionable destination for cultural tourists from Europe and further afield.
107 the difference between Bach and Clapisson: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750), immensely influential German Baroque composer; Antonin-Louis Clapisson (1808–66) was a minor French composer of comic operas.
114 Saint-Simon . . . Madame de Maintenon . . . Lulli: the Duc de Saint-Simon (1675–1755) wrote at great length and in remarkable detail about life in Louis XIV’s court at Versailles. One section of his
Mémoires (which span the period 1691–1723) is dedicated to the dinners held by Madame de Maintenon (1635–1719). Jean-Baptiste Lulli (1632–87) was an important composer of the period.
115 the art of placing an order: Crapotte (Proust misspells this) and Jauret were Parisian fruiterers popular with the elegant hostesses of the period; Chevet was a ‘traiteur’ or upmarket grocer/caterer.
118 the Septennate: the French Presidential term was historically seven years. The ‘septennate’ referred to here is most likely that of Edmé Patrice, Comte de Mac-Mahon, which began in 1873, though did not run its full course: Mac-Mahon resigned from office in 1879.
Botticelli’s Primavera, his fair Vanna, or his Venus: Primavera, the goddess of spring, appears in the painting of that name previously mentioned; the ‘fair Vanna’ refers to Giovanna Tornabuoni and the Three Graces (?1480), which Proust could have seen in the Louvre; and ‘his Venus’ is a reference to the famous Birth of Venus (1484–6).
119 second part of this story: a projection forward to the latter part of
Swann’s Way, ‘Place-names: the Name’, in which Swann and Odette are married.
120 Mémé old chap: a familiar, diminutive form of ‘Palamède’, the Baron de Charlus’s given name, used only by those who are close to him.
127 Balzac’s ‘tigers’: in the early to middle years of the nineteenth century, explored in the fictions of Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), a ‘tigre’ (or ‘tiger’: the term was used in English) was an elegant gentleman’s groom (a young male servant or attendant).
128 Mantegna: Andrea Mantegna (?1430–1506), Italian painter and engraver who was part of the team of artists who decorated the Church of the
Eremitani at Padua between 1449 and 1456: here, in the Ovetari Chapel, one can see ‘Scenes from the life of Saint John and Saint Christopher’. In the ‘Martyrdom of Saint John’, a warrior is depicted deep in thought, leaning on his shield as Proust describes here. Mantegna also painted the altarpiece of San Zeno in Verona, between 1456 and 1459.
one of Albrecht Dürer’s Saxons: Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), German painter and artist, a key figure in the Northern Renaissance, who was influenced by Mantegna and made copies of his engravings.
the Doges’ Palace — ‘The Giants’ Staircase’: the staircase in the central courtyard of the Ducal Palace in Venice takes its name from the huge statues of Mars and Neptune that flank it. The English art historian John Ruskin (1819–1900), whose works Proust read with great care, dedicates a significant section of his study of Venetian architecture, The Stones of Venice (1851–3), to the Doges’ Palace. Proust, with the assistance of his mother and an English-speaking cousin of his friend Reynaldo Hahn, published translations of Ruskin’s The Bible of Amiens (1885) and Sesame and Lilies (1865) in 1904 and 1906 respectively.
129 like one of Goya’s sextons: Proust was familiar with the work of the Spanish painter Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), though it is not clear which work he has in mind when evoking a representation of sextons.
like some priceless effigy by Benvenuto Cellini: Cellini (1500–71), sculptor and goldsmith from Florence. As with the preceding reference to Goya, it is not certain to which work Proust is alluding here.
Aubusson tapestries: tapestries and carpets have been manufactured at Aubusson in the Creuse department since the fourteenth century.
130 Jockey Club: one of the most exclusive private clubs in Paris. Established in 1833, for Proust it represented the epitome of the elite, closed group, with its own rules and codes of conduct. That Swann, Jewish and neither an aristocrat nor a leader of industry, should have attained election indicates how well connected he is in the highest circles of society.
131 Giotto’s Vices and Virtues at Padua: the Scrovegni Chapel, also known as the Arena Chapel, in Padua, contains a fresco series by Giotto di Bondone (?1266–1337), which includes allegorical depictions of the seven vices and virtues. Swann gives the young protagonist reproductions of these images in
Swann’s Way and we learn that, just as he had earlier associated Odette with Botticelli’s Zipporah, he then sees in the protagonist’s family’s kitchen maid an embodiment of Giotto’s figure of Charity.
an aria from Orfeo: the reference here is to the opera Orpheus and Eurydice (1762) by Gluck (1714–87).
Liszt’s ‘Saint Francis Preaching to the Birds’: Franz Liszt (1811–86) composed two pieces of music for solo piano in 1863 inspired by ‘legends’: ‘Saint Francis of Assisi preaching to the birds’ and ‘Saint Francis of Paola walking on the waves’.
132 her ultra-Legitimist family would never have forgiven her: Madame de Gallardon here worries that meeting Princess Mathilde (1820–1904), the niece of Emperor Napoleon I, would horrify her family who, as ‘ultra-Legitimists’, would want nothing to do with those associated with the usurping of the power of the old regime aristocracy.
137 Mérimée . . . the plays of Meilhac and Halévy: the Guermantes’ wit is a recurring theme in Proust’s novel as a whole and here we are provided with a literary frame of reference for it. Prosper Mérimée (1803–70) was a dramatist and writer of short fiction, notably the novella
Carmen (1845) which was the basis for Bizet’s opera (1875). The libretto for this latter was written by Henri Meilhac (1831–97) and Ludovic Halévy (1834–1908), father of Proust’s schoolfriend Daniel Halévy (1872–1962). Meilhac and Halévy’s collaborations are characterized by their lively and often satirical nature.
140 the Belloir agency: Belloir was a company that rented chairs and sundries for receptions and parties.
the name of a victory before it was a bridge: Napoleon I’s forces defeated the Prussian army in the Battle of Jena in October 1806. To commemorate the victory, Napoleon ordered the construction of the bridge, which was formally opened in 1814.
141 famous mosaic table . . . Treaty of: Proust is most likely referring here to the table variously referred to as the ‘Breteuil Table’, the ‘Teschen Table’, and the ‘Table of Peace’, presented to the Baron de Breteuil (1730–1807) to mark the role he played in negotiating the Teschen Treaty of 1779, which established principles of collective security in Europe that ultimately formed the basis of the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Charter of the United Nations. The table can be seen in the Louvre Museum in Paris, which acquired the table via a crowd-funding initiative in January 2015.
142 Vercingetorix: (?82–46
bc) fearsome warrior king who commanded the combined Gallic tribes against Julius Caesar.
144 The double abbreviation . . . : Swann and the Princesse des Laumes are having fun with the sound of the name ‘Cambremer’, which ‘ends just in time’ in that it doesn’t quite spell ‘merde’ (shit). ‘It doesn’t begin any better’, notes Swann, since the first part of the name is shared with that of a General in Napoleon’s army, Pierre Cambronne, who, it is said, cried ‘Merde!’ when demanded to surrender at Waterloo. To speak of ‘le mot de Cambronne’ (Cambronne’s word) was a genteel, euphemistic way of saying ‘shit’.
145 that old Bérénice: ‘That awful Rampillon woman’ has been ‘dropped by her prince’, which leads the Princesse des Laumes to make an allusion to Racine’s play
Bérénice (1670), whose title character is to be married to the Emperor Titus, but is jilted because the Roman public cannot tolerate a foreign queen.
146 La Pérouse: Jean-François de Galaup, Comte de la Pérouse (1741–?1788), was a naval officer appointed by Louis XVI to lead a round-the-world expedition. He set off in August 1785, reaching Chile, Hawaii, Alaska,
California, Macau, Korea, Japan, Russia, and Australia before he and his crew disappeared without trace; their last correspondence dates from February 1788.
151 as he would that of La Princesse de Clèves or of René: Swann’s points of reference speak volumes about his tortured state of mind. He associates the sonata with ‘a conception of love and happiness’ as distinctive as that found in two literary classics:
La Princesse de Clèves (1678), a novel by Madame de La Fayette (1634–93), which tells of the frustrated love of a married woman for another man, and the short novel
René (1805), by Chateaubriand (1768–1848), whose plot concerns the romantic hero René and his sister Amélie’s incestuous love for him.
152 like some theme in Tristan: Wagner’s
Tristan and Isolde (first performed in 1865), in a similar vein to the literary allusions indicated in the previous note, tells the story of a forbidden love affair that ends in tragedy.
153 as inspired, perhaps, as Lavoisier or Ampère: Proust’s comparisons often straddle disciplinary boundaries and bring together that which might conventionally be thought of as quite distinct. Here the creative powers of the artist are compared to two of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries’ greatest scientists: Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743–94) is considered to be the founder of modern chemistry, whilst André Marie Ampère (1775–1836) was a mathematician and physicist who formulated the theory of electromagnetism.
155 convinced that . . . was in fact a Vermeer: at the sale Proust mentions (which took place in 1876), the painting in question was indeed sold to the Mauritshuis Museum in the Hague and was believed at the time to be the work of Nicolas Maes (?1634–93); an 1891 catalogue for the Mauritshuis indicates that the painting by that time had been re-attributed to Vermeer.
156 You’re never as unhappy as you think: likely allusion to La Rochefoucauld’s maxim ‘On n’est jamais si heureux ni si malheureux qu’on s’imagine’ (You are never as happy nor as unhappy as you imagine). The Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–80) was a moralist and author of the widely-read
Maximes (1665).
Mohammed II, whose portrait by Bellini he liked so much: earlier, in the ‘Combray’ part of Swann’s Way, Swann likens the narrator’s friend Bloch to this portrait, painted in 1479 by the Venetian artist Gentile Bellini (?1429–1507).
157 Whitsun: Whitsun, or Pentecost, is celebrated on the seventh Sunday after Easter in the Christian calendar.
161 Les Filles de Marbre: first performed in 1853, this successful play (
Girls of Marble), by Théodore Barrière, treats the life of courtesans, who are characterized as heartless and cold.
Dieppe, Cabourg, and Beuzeval: towns on the north coast of France. Between 1907 and 1914, Proust holidayed every year at Cabourg, which lends many traits to the fictional resort town of Balbec in his novel.
167 Alfred de Vigny’s Journal d’un poète . . . happiness depends upon the answers: the lines mentioned here are an accurate quotation from the posthumously published notes of the French Romantic poet, novelist, and dramatist Alfred de Vigny (1797–1863), titled
Journal d’un poète (
A Poet’s Diary, 1867).
171 like the loathsome creatures in the Desolation of Nineveh: Proust alludes here (somewhat obliquely) to a biblical story via John Ruskin’s
The Bible of Amiens (1884), which he had translated in 1904. In his description of the façade of the cathedral Ruskin points out statues of minor prophets standing above carved allusions to their respective prophecies: the animals left inhabiting the desolated, God-forsaken city of Nineveh figure among the prophecies of Zephaniah. The motif of desolation serves to communicate Swann’s frame of mind.
174 the three travellers: there are in fact four: Monsieur and Madame Verdurin, Madame Cottard, and Odette.
the Mirlitons . . . Machard: the Mirlitons was an annual art exhibition organized by the ‘Cercle de l’Union Artistique’ (The Circle of the Artistic Union). Jules-Louis Machard (1839–1900) was a portrait painter of great renown who first exhibited at the Mirlitons in 1863.
175 Leloir: Jean-Baptiste-Auguste Leloir (1809–92), primarily a painter of historical and religious subjects, though he did produce a number of portraits.