Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 522-32)

p 522 | Pencil drawings  by Pisanello. The drawing of Sigismund of Luxembourg is in the Louvre; did Proust see it there?

| Gallé's glass: Émile Gallé, Art Nouveau artist who worked in glass.

p 523 | confraternity: a group of men united for some particular purpose, esp Christian laymen organized for religious or charitable service; brotherhood [from Medieval Latin: confraternitas; see confrère, fraternity]
| reliquary:   (Ecclesiastical Terms) a receptacle or repository for relics, esp relics of saints [from Old French reliquaire, from relique relic]
| predella : (Art) a painting or sculpture or a series of small paintings or sculptures in a long narrow strip forming the lower edge of an altarpiece or the face of an altar step or platform.
| reredos:  a screen or wall decoration on the wall at the back of an altar, as a tapestry, painting, or piece of metalwork or sculpture.

|  <-- gray mullet 
p 526 | butterfly signature of James McNeill Whistler; his painting of Lady Meux, titled "Harmony in Pink and Grey."
| What Marcel saw out the window.... click "Photo Gallery" for Grand Hotel (modern) photos.  Webcams at Balbec.  
p 527 | First mention of Dreyfus! (So the year is maybe summer of 1895?)
p 529 | Cauteries... cautery: Agent or instrument that destroys abnormal tissue by burning, searing, or scarring, including caustic substances, electric currents, lasers, and very hot or very cold instruments.
p 531 | a fortiori: for similar but more convincing reasons.

Le Cercle de la Rue Royale (p 481)

Le Balcon du Cercle de la Rue Royale, by James Tissot, 1868

p 481 |  The Rue Royale was an exclusive men's club, not snooty enough for Saint-Loup's family, whose father had been  president of the Jockey Club, since Jews were occasionally admitted (see Charles Haas, far right).  From left to right: Comte de La Tour-Maubourg, Marquis de Lau, Comte de Ganay, Comte de Rochechouart, C. Vansittant, Marquis de Miramon, Baron Hottinguer (former owner of the painting), Marquis de Ganay, Gaston de Saint-Maurice, Prince de Polignac, Marquis de Gallifet et Charles Haas (standing on the step, not quite in... Haas was the main model for Charles Swann).

Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 467-81)

p 467 | Monomotapa was a Kafir territory in SE Africa, thought to be mythological, but attested to by Portuguese & Dutch sources from the 16th century onward, and continuing as far northward as beyond the Zambezi. La Fontaine (1621-95) seems to have chosen it as an example of an exotic distant land.  [fn 1, re: The Two Friends (VIII, 11), p. 423, The Complete Fables of Jean de La Fontaine, by Jean de La Fontaine, Norman R. Shapiro. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2007} See also Wikipedia for Kingdom of Mutapa.

Alfred de Musset

p 475 | Alfred de Musset  (1810 – 57; Académicien): French dramatist, poet, novelist & lover of George Sand. L'espoir en Dieu was a poem published in La Revue des Deux Mondes in 1838.

p 476 | Mme Cornuel: Anne-Marie Bigot, dame Cornuel (1614 (?) - 94), French salonista, aphorist, and wit of the 17th century. She is credited with saying "No man is a hero to his valet."
| ... swallow-tail coat: The front is cut away, leaving just the tails in back. See this page and Wikipedia.

p 478 | ... pepla: variant of peplum (flounce or short, flared flap attached at the waist of a dress, blouse, coat, etc., and extending around the hips).
|... fandangle: variant of fandango (foolish act, nonsense).
|... calumniate: slander
|... rigmarole: foolish or incoherent rambling talk or nonsense; an involved, fussy, time-wasting procedure
 p 480 | ...consanguinity: blood relationship, or other close association or connection

Duke d'Aumale

| Duke d'Aumale: (Prince) Henri Louis d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale (1822–97), 5th son of Louis-Philippe, King of the French & Duc d'Orléans and Marie Amalie of Bourbon-Sicilies, was a leader for the Orleanist cause of a constitutional monarchy in France (Wiki).
| ...Princesse Murat/Queen of Naples: This was Caroline Bonaparte.

p 481| Victoria carriage: French carriage, named for Queen Victoria at least by 1844, and renowned for its elegance. It was first imported into England by the Prince of Wales in 1869, where it rapidly gained popularity. It was usually pulled by one or two horses. The victoria was a low, light, four-wheeled, doorless vehicle with a forward-facing seat for two persons covered with a folding top, or calash, and a removable, elevated coachman’s seat above the front axle. The graceful body curved down from the coachman’s seat to the floorboards, and up again like a gently sloping chair. The Grand Victoria had a rumble seat for two extra passengers.  (Brittanica)

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)"

Proust Online Course

Professor Carter's online Proust course appears to be ongoing.

Biographical essay

Here's a short biographical essay by Charles Matthews at his Proust-reading weblog.

Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 446-49) Notes for July 2011

p 446 | "horseman beloved of Ares" (Greek god of war)
| "shore of Amphitrite" (Greek goddess of the sea, wife of Poseidon)
| "swift-shipped Meniers": probably refers to Henri Menier (1853-1913), a wealthy French yachting enthusiast, but may also include the rest of the family.

p 447| Charles Leconte de Lisle, French poet, 1818-94. 
| José-Maria de Heredia, Cuban-French poet, 1842-1905. Académician
| Parnassians: As a reaction to romantic poetry, this 19th century school of mostly French poets emphasized art for art’s sake, strict form & meter, and emotional detachment. 
| Suez Canal board (M. de Marsantes)
| Stereoscope: a 3-dimensional photo viewer; special cameras took these pictures.

p 448 | Incarville; Incarville to Cabourg [Balbec]
| Podestà:  Italian officials
| Renaissance medals:   historical records of events & leading figures of the Quattrocento, intended to be the chief source for posterity for the lives of deliberately glorified individuals. a recent sale; images; 

p 449 | violas da gamba, violas d'amore
| Phoenix Club: fictional exclusive club, founded by Charlus & his society friends
| Jockey Club: elite society gathering-place; photo
| Comte de Paris:  Philippe d'Orléans, Count of Paris (1838 – 1894) was the grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French. He was a claimant to the French throne from 1848 until his death.

Within a Budding Grove (vol II pp 443-46) Notes for July 2011

p 443 | M. Legrandin (in Combray, engineer & man of letters; in Balbec, Mme de Cambremer’s brother).

| Jules-Amédée Barbey d'Aurevilly (1808-89), Catholic dandy & polemicist from Normandy who wrote novels of provincial life in a belated Gothic-Romantic and derivatively Balzacian vein.

p 444 | "... Zeus Kronion. ..." here, and elsewhere, Bloch borrows tags from Leconte de Lisle's poems & translations from the Greek.

| "... black Ker.." female spirit of violent death (Greek).

| Samuel Bernard (1651-1739) Protestant banker who provided important funding for France during the reigns of Louis XIV & Louis XV.