Video Proust

Ronald Bergan on his role in the longest film ever. Okay, this 3-year-old post from the Guardian references this "home video" recording of A la recherche du temps perdu. You can go to this website, type in a page number (9, 24 and other random numbers worked for me; 1 did not), click voir, and watch regular people read a page o'Proust. I will do one too, as soon as I can figure out how. Anyone else?

Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 449-68) Notes for July 2011

p 449 | M. first sees Charlus at Tansonville:  “Gilberte, come along; what are you doing?” called out in a piercing tone of authority a lady in white, whom I had not seen until that moment, while, a little way beyond her, a gentleman in a suit of linen ‘ducks,’ whom I did not know either, stared at me with eyes which seemed to be starting from his head; the little girl’s smile abruptly faded, and, seizing her trowel, she made off without turning to look again in my direction, with an air of obedience, inscrutable and sly."

 by Armand Guillaumin

p 450 |  "Possessing, by virtue of his descent from the Ducs de Nemours and Princes de Lamballe, documents, furniture, tapestries, portraits painted for his ancestors by Raphael, Velasquez, Boucher, ..."

Lebourg: Notre-Dame de Paris et la Seine 

p 460 | "a ‘modern style’ of decoration, employing Lebourg or Guillaumin."

p 468 |"she regarded Princes as enviable above all other men because they were able to have a Labruyère, a Fénelon as their tutors..."  

Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 449...) French noble titles - Notes for July 2011

From a rather interesting article on French nobility and/or titles over at Heraldica.org:
"The origin of modern titles like duke, marquis, count lie in public offices held under Merovingian kings (6th-8th c.).

• A duke (Latin dux, literally "leader") was the governor of a province, usually a military leader.
• A count (Latin comes, literally "companion") was an appointee of the king governing a city and its immediate surroundings, or else a high-ranking official in the king's immediate entourage (the latter called "palace counts" or "counts Palatine").
• A marquis was a count who was also the governor of a "march," a region at the boundaries of the kingdom that needed particular protection against foreign incursions (margrave in German).
• A viscount was the lieutenant of a count, either when the count was too busy to stay at home, or when the county was held by the king himself.
• A baron (a later title) was originally a direct vassal of the king, or of a major feudal lord like a duke or a count.
• A castellan (châtelain) was the commander in charge of a castle.  A few castellanies survived with the title of "sire."

"An edict of 1575, rarely enforced, established a minimum size and income for the land to which the created title was attached, thus establishing a hierarchy which was purely notional:

• duc (duke)
• marquis (marquis)
• comte (earl)
• vicomte (viscount)
• baron (baron)"