The Captive V pp 531-59

p 531 | The Ambrosian Library: The Biblioteca Ambrosiana is a historic library in Milan, Italy, also housing the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, the Ambrosian art gallery.

p 531 | Fortuny in Tiepolo pink: 

p 545 | Luxembourg Gallery = Musée du Luxembourg (Paris)

p 545 | Fourteenth of July = Bastille Day, French National Day, celebrated on July 14th each year.

p 547 | ...steeple of Saint-Hilaire.... (really Saint-Jacques in Illiers-Combray)

p 552 | Les Rochers: The 15th century Gothic mansion known as the Château des Rochers-Sévigné was the former residence of Madame de Sévigné in Brittany.

Château des Rochers-Sévigné (photo: Luna04 wiki)

p 554 | vetiver: a fragrant grass, related to sorghum; similar to lemongrass & citronella.

p 554 | Saint-Jean-de-la-Haise (Normandy, nw France); Gourville (Charente, sw France)

The Captive V pp 511-31

Photo: Georges Jansoone

p 512 | Creation of Woman (Eve) at Orvieto Cathedral (probably by Maitani). 

 p 514 | Jean-Philippe Rameau (French Baroque composer, 1683–1764); Alexander Borodin (Russian Romantic composer, 1833–87).

p 515 | Saint Cecilia is the patroness of musicians. While details of her story appear fictional, her existence & martyrdom are considered historical fact. A number of musical compositions are dedicated to her, and her feast day, November 22, became the occasion for concerts & musical festivals. |

p 516 | Bernardino Luini (c. 1480/82 – 1532) was a North Italian (Milanese) painter from Leonardo's circle, said to have worked with Leonardo directly.

p 517 | Giorgione (c. 1477/8–1510) was an Italian painter of the Venetian school in the High Renaissance, whose career was ended by his death at about 30. He is known for the elusive poetic quality of his work, though only about six surviving paintings are affirmatively acknowledged to be his.

Blue & gold Fortuny gown lined in pink (V 531)

The Captive V pp 501-11

p 501 | Pianola (player piano); a Velasquez Infanta, for example Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress (attributed);

p 503 | Sacred Variation for the Organ = from Vinteuil's septet at the Verdurin's.

p 506 | Jules Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808–89) was a French novelist and short story writer.

p 508 | Fyodor Dostoyevsky, 1821-81, Russian novelist. His novels: The Idiot (1868), Crime and Punishment (1866), The Brothers Karamazov (1880)

p 509 | Mihály Munkácsy (1844 – 1900) was a Hungarian painter, specializing in genre pictures and large-scale biblical paintings.

p 511 | Pierre Choderlos de Laclos (1741-1801) was a French novelist, best known for the 1782 epistolary novel Les Liaisons dangereuses (Dangerous Liaisons).  Stéphanie Félicité, Madame de Genlis (1746–1830) was a French writer.

  The Night Watch by Rembrandt.

The Captive V pp 444-501

La Tour

p 454 | Casser le pot à quelqu'un: "le sodomiser" (Dictionnaire de l'argot, Larousse, 1990). This is the only mention of by Albertine of anal sex. Although the explanation that follows suggests that the expression may have been used by lesbians to denote penetrative sex in general. (Clark note) 

p 470| Maurice de La Tour (1704-88) was a French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Madame de Pompadour, and Louis XV.

p 485 | "... mediaeval Last Judgments..."; logarithmic tables.

p 487 | Albert I, Prince of Monaco, 1848-1922; Théophile Delcassé (French foreign minister, 1898-1905; hated Germany).

p 497 | Treaty of Utrecht 1713 (King Louis XIV); Pont-aux-Choux silver designs... maybe something like this:

Bakst

p 497 | Jacques Roettiers, 18-century French gold/ silversmith; Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry (1743-93) was the mistress of King Louis XV. Josep Maria Sert (also José María Sert y Badía, Catalan painter, 1874-1945); Léon Bakst, Russian painter & set designer, 1866–1924; Alexandre Benois, Russian painter & ballet designer, 1870–1960.

p 501 | Winged Victory of Samothrace (ancient Greek sculpture in the Louvre).

Winged Victory

The Captive V pp 408-44

p 411 | Ultramontanism is a clerical political conception within the Catholic Church that places strong emphasis on the powers of the Pope. From the Middle Ages: when a non-Italian was elected to the papacy, he was said to be papa ultramontano, that is, a Pope from beyond the mountains (referring to the Alps). Foreign students at medieval Italian universities were also referred to as ultramontanes.

p 414 | Queen of Naples: Maria Sophie in Bavaria (1841-1925) was the last Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

p 418 | Camille Chevillard, French composer/conductor, 1859-1923.

p 422 | Hunt-the-thimble is a party game.

p 441 | Second Eclogue of Virgil

[ 442 | Causeries du Lundi: (tr. “Monday Chats”) were a series of informal essays by Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve. The 640 critical & biographical essays on literary topics & European authors were published weekly in several Paris newspapers, on Mondays, for over 20 years (1849-69), later collected into 15 volumes. The most famous French exponent of the biographical method of literary criticism, Sainte-Beuve was Proust's critical bête noire: his writings on literature, published posthumously, were given the title Contre Sainte-Beuve. No doubt it amused him to present, through Brichot, Sainte-Beuve's work as a collection of stale gossip. (Clark notes)

p 442: Phidias (c. 480–430 BC) was a Greek sculptor, painter, and architect. His statue of Zeus at Olympia was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World.

p 443 | Aspasia was an ancient Greek woman philosopher, who had a "salon" and maybe influenced Socrates.

p 444 | quod di omen avertant = May the gods avert this omen (Cicero)

p 444 | The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard (1881) is the 1st novel of Anatole France.

Proust movies

Famous Authors: Marcel Proust 2008 NR



Time Regained1999



The Captive/La Captive2000  NR



Swann in Love 1984 R



Famous Authors - Marcel Proust



Alan Bennett at the BBC - 4-DVD Box Set ( 102 Boulevard Haussmann / A Day Out / A Question of Attribution / A...
1990  Unrated

The Captive V pp 403-408

p 403 | Monsieur, like 'Madame,' was a title given to a close relative of the King under the ancien régime. 'Monsieur' was the King's eldest brother, 'Madame' his wife. The 'Monsieur' referred to here, Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, Louis XIV's only brother, was notoriously an effeminate homosexual. He had two wives (and several children): the second Madame was Charlotte-Elizabeth, a princess from the Palatinate hence her further name of La Palatine). She was a stocky, down-to-earth German girl who was at first appalled and finally moved to shocked laughter by the atmosphere of Louis XIV's court, where she lived for fifty years, describing it in regular, vivid letters to her relations at home. These were edited and translated in 1863, giving 19th-century Frenchmen a new view of the court of the Sun King. Most of M. de Charlus's scandalous anecdotes come from La Palatine's letters: not, however, the suggestion that Molière was a homosexual, which is not found in 17th-century sources.

Louis II of Bourbon, the Great Condé

p 403 | Louis, Count of Vermandois, Ludwig Wilhelm, Margrave of Baden-Baden (1655-1701),  

• Charles II, Duke of Brunswick (1804-73), 
•  Charles de Bourbon-Condé, Count of Charolais (1700-60),  
• Louis-François, Duc de Boufflers (1644–1711), 
• Louis de Bourbon, Prince of Condé (1621–86), 
• Henri-Albert de Cossé, duc de Brissac (1645-98),  
• Louis Joseph de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme (1654–1712),
• Amaury III de Goyon, marquis de La Moussaye (1601-74?).

p 406 | Prince Eugene of Savoy (1663–1736), Paul Bourget (1852–1935), French novelist & critic; Nicolas du Blé, Maréchal d'Huxelles, (1652-1730);   Life and letters of Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess Palatine ("Madame"); François VI, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Prince de Marcillac (1613–80) noted French author of maxims and memoirs.

Heliogabalus

p 408 | Heliogabalus (also called Elagabalus), dissolute Roman emperor (as Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus), c 203–222. The Spanish word heliogábalo means "a person overwhelmed by gluttony."

The Roses of Heliogabalus (1888), Lawrence Alma-Tadema.

The Captive V pp 391-403

p 395 | Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni (1475–1564) was an Italian sculptor, painter, architect, and poet of the High Renaissance who exerted an unparalleled influence on the development of Western art.

p 395 | Pope Leo X (1475–1521), born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. The 2nd son of Lorenzo the Magnificent, ruler of the Florentine Republic, he was elevated to the cardinalate in 1489.p396  |  jarniguié ?
 396  |  friend of the actress" , little society of four friend

from 1788

p 397 |  25 louis:  Louis, also called Louis d’or,  gold coins circulated in France before the Revolution. The franc and livre were silver coins that had shrunk in value to such an extent that by 1740 coins of a larger denomination were needed.  The French kings therefore had gold coins struck and called after their name Louis, or louis d’or (“gold Louis”). After the Revolution, Napoleon continued the practice, calling coins napoleons, valued at 20 francs.

p 398 |  Maurice Barrès (1862–1923) was a French novelist, journalist and politician. He became a figure in French literature with the release of his work The Cult of the Self in 1888. In politics, he was first elected to the Chamber of Deputies in 1889 as a Boulangist and would play a prominent political role for the rest of his life (anti-Dreyfusard).

p 398 | Urbain Le Verrier (1811–77) was a French mathematician who specialized in celestial mechanics & is best known for predicting the existence and position of Neptune using only mathematics.

p 398 | Léon Daudet (1867—1942), French journalist and novelist, the most virulent & bitterly satirical polemicist of his generation in France, whose literary reputation rests largely on his journalistic work & memoirs. Son of novelist Alphonse Daudet, his younger brother Lucien was Proust's friend. Léon's major journalistic achievement began in 1908, when he and Charles Maurras refashioned L’Action française into a daily paper of avowedly reactionary, nationalist, & royalist opinion. Daudet had published an antirepublican satire, Le Pays des partementeurs, in 1901, and his contributions to L’Action française showed the same satirical and Rabelaisian flavor. (Britannica, 1998)

p 398 | Percent of homosexuals (Charlus says 7 out of 10 or 70%). But...According to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research, about 20 % of the population is attracted to their own gender. That’s nearly double the usual estimates of about 10%. (2013) France in 2015, is probably the least tolerant gay culture country in the list but it has numbers that are likely to surprise you. 1 out of every 10 men in France happens to be gay.

p 399 | Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704) was a French bishop and theologian, renowned for his sermons...He has been considered as one of the most brilliant orators of all time & a masterly French stylist. Court preacher to Louis XIV of France, Bossuet was a strong advocate of political absolutism & the divine right of kings. He argued that government was divine and that kings received their power from God. He was also an important courtier and politician.

p 402 | Amanien, Marquis d’Osmond: This character, nicknamed Mama, was the cousin of the Guermantes who was dying back at III 788-93 & 805-8, which disturbed the Duc & Duchesse's social plans.

p 402 | Pierre de Verjus, Comte de Crécy (Odette’s first husband): Marcel befriends him at Balbec at IV 657-61.

Self Portrait c 1872

p 403 | James McNeill Whistler (1834–1903) was an American artist, active during the American Gilded Age and based primarily in the U.K. He was averse to sentimentality and moral allusion in painting, & was a leading proponent of "art for art's sake." His signature was the shape of a butterfly with a long stinger for a tail, symbolizing both his delicate art and combative public persona. Parallelling painting and music, Whistler titled many of his paintings "arrangements", "harmonies", and "nocturnes", noting the primacy of tonal harmony. His most famous painting is "Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1" (1871), commonly known as Whistler's Mother. Whistler influenced the art world and the culture of his time with his artistic theories and friendships with leading artists and writers.

Harmony in Pink and Grey: Portrait of Lady Meux

The Captive V pp 369-91

p 382 | Thomas Couture (1815-79): French history painter & teacher.

Romans during the Decadence (1847)

 p 383 | Georges Enesco (Romanian violinist, 1881–1955); also a composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher, often considered Romania's most important musician. Lucien Capet (French violinist, 1873–1928); Jacques Thibaud (French violinist, 1880–1953). 

p 383 | Étienne Pierre Théodore Rousseau (1812–67) was a French painter of the Barbizon school (realism in art).

p 385 | Angelus: The Angelus (Latin for "angel") is a Catholic devotion commemorating the Incarnation... called the "prayer of the devotee", traditionally recited three times daily: 6:00 am, noon, and 6:00 pm.... The Angelus is usually accompanied by the ringing of the Angelus bell, which is a call to prayer and to spread good-will to everyone. The angel referred to in the prayer is Gabriel, a messenger of God who revealed to Mary that she would conceive a child to be born the Son of God.

p 386 | florilegium=a collection of literary extracts; an anthology.

p 386 | Auguste Vacquerie (French writer, 1819-95); Paul Meurice (French writer, 1818-1905); Victor Hugo (1802–85).

p 387 | "...not in the least timorous..." = not showing or suffering from nervousness, fear, or a lack of confidence.


p 389 | beadle=A beadle is a church leader. Often, a beadle serves as an usher or manages charities for the church. The noun beadle isn't used very often in American English, though it's still fairly common in Britain, where beadles hold symbolic or ceremonial jobs in parishes or at universities.

p 389 | sursum corda (Latin: "Lift up your hearts" or literally, "Hearts lifted").

p 390 | The Most Serene House of Condé was a French princely house and a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. The name of the house was derived from the title of Prince of Condé that was originally assumed around 1557 by the French Protestant leader, Louis de Bourbon (1530–1569), uncle of King Henry IV of France, and borne by his male-line descendants. 

p 390 | ... wearing a ruff... : An item of clothing worn in Western Europe from the mid-16th century to the mid-17th century, primarily. The ruff, worn by men, women and children, evolved from the small fabric ruffle at the drawstring neck of a shirt or chemise. This changeable piece of cloth could be laundered separately while keeping the wearer's doublet from becoming soiled at the neckline.

p 391 | Man proposes, but God disposes is a translation of the Latin phrase Homo proponit, sed Deus disponit from Book I, chapter 19, of The Imitation of Christ by the German cleric Thomas à Kempis.

The Captive V pp 351-69

p 355 | Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–88) was a French naturalist, mathematician, cosmologist, and encyclopedist.

p 355 | A tea dance, also called a thé dansant (French for "dancing tea"), is a summer or autumn afternoon or early-evening dance from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., sometimes preceded in the English countryside by a garden party.

p 356 | A l'ombre d'un petit bois de pins qui couvre la partie supérieure de la grande ile, s'élève le Chalet, café-restaurant tenu par les glaciers Poiré-Blanche. (In the shade of a small pine forest that covers the top of the large island, stands the Chalet, café and restaurant run by Poiré Blanche glaciers [makers of ices].

p 365 | "... fall of Gaeta..." : The Siege of Gaeta was the concluding event of the war between the Kingdom of Sardinia & the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, part of the unification of Italy. It started on November 5, 1860 and ended February 13, 1861, in Gaeta (today's Southern Lazio, Italy).

p 365 | From Manet, Wagner, and the Musical Culture of Their Time by Therese Dolan (p 33): "...The third act found little favor with the majority and the end of the opera was greeted with loud sifflements, the hissing and whistling that were the characteristic French show of disdain. Jules Janin reported that Princess Metternich broke her fan against the railing of the loge where she was seated because she pounded it in such fury at the hostile reaction of the audience." This was at the Paris debut of Wagner's Tannhäuser on March 13, 1861.

Caroline Bonaparte

p 365 | Maria Carolina Murat (1782–1839), better known as Caroline Bonaparte (a younger sister of Napoleon I), was also the Queen of Naples.

p 366 | Duras=Duchesse de Duras, 1st wife of the Duc de Duras.

p 367 | In Wagner's Die Meistersinger Von Nurnberg, the character Beckmesser is "the pedantic town clerk and master of "Die Meistersinger." ... Beckmesser can't actually create beauty himself; all he can do is find flaws, judging the new by the old..." From a music review by Edward Rothstein, New York Times, 1/24/93. 

p 369 | Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (1737–1814) was a French writer and botanist.

The Captive V pp 310-351

Nijinsky

p 314 | History of the Ballets Russes

p 316 | Jean Jaurès (French politician & historian, 1859–1914) was a French Socialist leader.

p 320 | rhino-gomenol: a decongestant & antiseptic ointment which Proust himself frequently used.


p 327 | Aristide Bruant (1851–1925) was a French cabaret singer, comedian, and nightclub owner.

p 328 | Maria Sophie in Bavaria (Queen of Naples, 1841–1925) was the last Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. 

Empress Elisabeth of Austria and Duchesse d'Alençon were her sisters. Her niece, Elisabeth of Bavaria, Queen of Belgium (1876–1965) married Albert I (1875–1934), who reigned as King of the Belgians from 1909 to 1934. 

p 331 | Norns:  in Norse mythology, female beings who rule the destiny of gods and men. They roughly correspond to other controllers of humans' destiny, the Fates, elsewhere in European mythology.

p 334 | Sibyl: certain women of antiquity reputed to possess powers of prophecy or divination or supposed to utter the oracles and prophecies of a god.

p 337 | Kinderszenen ("Scenes from Childhood"), Opus 15, by Robert Schumann, is a set of 13 pieces of music for piano written in 1838. "Child Sleeps" and "Poet Speaks" are two titles from the work. Hear samples at this link.

p 339 | The Sistine Chapel ceiling, painted by Michelangelo between 1508 and 1512, is a cornerstone work of High Renaissance art.

p 350 | Song to the Evening Star & Elizabeth’s Prayer, both from Wagner's 1845 opera Tannhäuser. Tristan, Rhinegold, and the Mastersingers are other operas by the German composer, Richard Wagner, 1813-83.

p 351 | "...Pas d'Armes du Roi Jean.... the Contemplations...": Early vs later works by French author Victor Hugo, 1802-85.

Comments at The Cork-Lined Room

Proustiennes forever!

See more of us over here!

 August 2010: Watching "Swann in Love" together

New Proust play in Montreal

This play sounds like great fun!

========================================================



About Sylvie Moreau, the director (articles in French). 

Sylvie Moreau du côté de chez Proust

La vie et l’œuvre de Marcel Proust

In bed with Marcel

Video of Proust??

Story from Le Figaro

Video is here... watch at 37 seconds



Des images de Proust retrouvées ? by LePoint

The Captive V pp 289-310

p 290 | per fas et nefas: Latin for "Through right and wrong."

p 290 | Il Sodoma (1477–1549) was the name given to Renaissance painter Giovanni Antonio Bazzi.  After separating from his wife, he was considered by contemporaries to have been homosexual.

p 292 | Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921)

p 294 | kakochnyk: hair style resembling diadems worn by Russian aristocratic women. Léon Bakst : Portrait of a Girl Wearing a Kokoshnik

p 306 | Xavier Boniface Saintine (1798 – 1865) was a French dramatist and novelist.

p 309 | Montesquiou family; Uzès family; House of La Trémoille; Duke of Luynes

p 309 | Abbé François-Xavier de Montesquiou-Fézensac (1757–1832) was a French clergyman and politician.

p 310 | philippic: a discourse or declamation full of bitter condemnation; tirade.

The Captive V pp 272-89

p 272 | El Greco paints the Grand Inquisitor: This intense portrait depicts Fernando Niño de Guevara (1541–1609), who in 1596 was named cardinal and is dressed as such here. In 1599 he became Inquisitor General of Spain but resigned in 1602 to serve the rest of his life as Archbishop of Seville. The painting probably dates from the spring of 1600 when the cardinal was in Toledo with Philip III and members of the Madrid court.

p 275 | Jean Mounet-Sully (1841-1916), French actor.

p 276 | Hair en brosse: French phrase meaning cut short so it stands up like bristles on a brush. An example of en brosse is a man's military hair cut or a buzz cut.

p 279 | Queen of the May: The May Queen is usually a teenage girl who is selected to ride or walk at the front of a parade for May Day celebrations. She wears a white gown to symbolize purity and usually a tiara or crown.

p 281 | 19th century private detectives. 

p 284 | ... looks like a Bronzino.

p 289 | Le Gaulois: French daily newspaper, founded 1868.

The Captive V pp 261-72

p 261 | Cercle de l'Union interalliée : also known as the Cercle interallié, is a private social & dining club established in 1917. The clubhouse is the Hôtel Perrinet de Jars at 33 rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in Paris. It adjoins the British Embassy and an annex of the embassy of Japan.

Duchesse of Uzes

p 262 | Uzès, Jacques, duc de (French aristocrat): The Duchesse of Uzes, née Rochechouart de Mortemart was the first woman in France to obtain a driving licence... in 1889 she and her son Jacques were fined for speeding at nearly 15 kph in their Delahaye in the Bois de Boulogne. Heiress to the Veuve Cliquot champagne fortune, she financed General Boulanger whose ambition was to overthrow the French Republic. She wrote under the name of Manuela, and also sculpted the statue of St Hubert (Patron of the Hunt) in the Sacré Coeur Basilica in Paris. She was a feminist who was interested in furthering social welfare, and became a friend of the anarchist Louise Michel.

p 262 | M. Cartier (French aristocrat, Mme de Villefranche’s brother; friend of Bréauté & La Trémoïlle) (character)

p 262-63 | Tissot's painting of the Rue Royale. Charles Haas is on the far right. Click here to see who else is in the picture.

p 264 | Antoine Léon Marie de Noailles (19 April 1841 Paris – 2 February 1909) 9th prince de Poix, from (1846) 6th duc espagnol de Mouchy, 5th duc français de Mouchy et duc de Poix, from 1854, was a French nobleman.

p 264 | Boucher tapestries :: François Boucher (1703–1770)

p 266 | Charles VII, called the Victorious or the Well-Served, was a monarch of the House of Valois who ruled as King of France from 1422 to his death.

p 265 | Quai Conti, right on the Seine, near Pont Neuf. Nice.

p 267 | Otto Wegener... photographer.... see photos here...
Otto Wegener (1849 - 1924) is a Swedish photographer who worked in Paris from 1867. He took this picture of Proust:

p 267 | Guillaume Lenthéric (Parisian hairdresser/perfumer, d. 1912)

p 270 | Praxiteles (Greek sculptor, 4th century B.C.):

p 270 | Jean de La Bruyère (French essayist, Académician, 1645–96).

p 270 | Theocritus (Greek poet, 3rd century B.C.):

p 272 | Chaps: a fissure or crack, especially in the skin.

Video : Marcel Proust (Ten Great Writers Part 5)

Video :  Marcel Proust (Ten Great Writers Part 5)

Click above or press Play.  Some dramatization, some conversation, some explication. All wonderful.  One hour long.

Possible chronology, in French

Chronologie des événements d'À la recherche du temps perdu...