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10.28.2010

Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 156 ff) October Notes 2010

 p 157 | Swann drew me aside for a moment while his wife talked of the weather and of the animals recently added to the Jardin d’Acclimatation, with the Princess. "That is the Princesse Mathilde," he told me; "you know who I mean, the friend of Flaubert, Sainte-Beuve, Dumas. Just fancy, she’s the niece of Napoleon I. She had offers of marriage from Napoleon III and the Emperor of Russia
 Mathilde Laetitia Wilhelmine Bonaparte, Princesse Française (May 27, 1820 - January 2, 1904), was a French princess and Salon holder. She was a daughter of Napoleon's brother Jérôme Bonaparte and his second wife, Catharina of Württemberg.

~~ Hippolyte Taine (historian & critic)

P.P.C. (pour prendre congé): For leave-taking; sometimes written on the address cards of persons about to leave a locality when they pay their farewell visits. In English, paid parting call.  [E. Cobham Brewer,1810–97. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1898]






>> Cin`ga`lese´ ::  n. sing.; 1. A native or natives of Ceylon descended from its primitive inhabitants


 ...marvellous garment of crêpe-de-Chine or silk, old rose, cherry-coloured, Tiepolo pink, white, mauve, green, red or yellow, plain or patterned, in which Mme. Swann had sat down to luncheon and which she was now going to take off. 

Tiepolo Pink::
dressing gown/housecoat


... without crossing the path of that inextinguishable ray cast backwards to infinity, even into my own most distant past, by the lobster à l’Américaine which I had just been eating?
p | 156 | .."Charles ! Don't you see Mme de Montmorency?"

10.12.2010

Within a Budding Grove (vol II p 122-27) Notes October 2010

p 127 | Louis-Philippe, Count of Paris (1838-94)
p 124-25 | Faubourg Saint-Germain: fashionable Parisian district, where most of Swann's old friends were. 



p 122-23 | Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906): more to come 

p 124 | THE ALMANACH de GOTHA: Europe's Nobility Reference Book 
Madame de Marsantes (Countess) was the sister of Charlus and Basin (Duc de Guermantes); mother of Robert de Saint-Loup, niece of Mme de Villeparisis. She was the one person who disobeyed Lady Israels by being "at home" to Odette, until the day they arrived together. 

p 125 | Swann's friend, Robert Philippe d’Orléans (1840–1910), was the Duc de Chartres and claimant to the throne. He was the Prince, but this confused Odette, who thought he was only a duke. 
p 125 | Aisne: Department in northern France.  Odette thought the Guermantes family were from here. They were not. Another gaffe. 




10.10.2010

Pages for October

10/7:  The evolution of society (117). Swann’s “amusing sociological experiments” (128). Swann’s old jealousy (131) and new love (133).

10/14:  Outings with the Swanns (134). Lunch with them (135). Odette plays Vinteuil’s sonata to me (140). A work of genius creates its own posterity (143). 

10/21:  What the little phrase now means to Swann (145). “Me negger; you old cow!” (149-53).

10/30:   Consistent charm of Mme Swann’s heterogeneous drawing-room (153). Princess Mathilde (157).