Side quotes Archives

How Aunt Léonie was like Louis XIV...
My mother was afraid lest Françoise develop a genuine hatred of my aunt, who was doing everything in her power to annoy her. However, Françoise had come, more and more, to pay an infinitely scrupulous attention to my aunt’s least word and gesture. When she had to ask her for anything she would hesitate, first, for a long time, making up her mind how best to begin. And when she had uttered her request, she would watch my aunt covertly, trying to guess from the expression on her face what she thought of it, and how she would reply. And in this way — whereas an artist who had been reading memoirs of the 17th century, and wished to bring himself nearer to the great Louis, would consider that he was making progress in that direction when he constructed a pedigree that traced his own descent from some historic family, or when he engaged in correspondence with one of the reigning Sovereigns of Europe, and so would shut his eyes to the mistake he was making in seeking to establish a similarity by an exact and therefore lifeless copy of mere outward forms — a middle-aged lady in a small country town, by doing no more than yield whole-hearted obedience to her own irresistible eccentricities, and to a spirit of mischief engendered by the utter idleness of her existence, could see, without ever having given a thought to Louis XIV, the most trivial occupations of her daily life, her morning toilet, her luncheon, her afternoon nap, assume, by virtue of their despotic singularity, something of the interest that was to be found in what Saint-Simon used to call the ‘machinery’ of life at Versailles; and was able, too, to persuade herself that her silence, a shade of good humour or of arrogance on her features, would provide Françoise with matter for a mental commentary as tense with passion and terror, as did the silence, the good humour or the arrogance of the King when a courtier, or even his greatest nobles, had presented a petition to him, at the turning of an avenue, at Versailles.

From Contre Sainte-Beuve:
Perhaps, too, they may grant me that ravishing thing: a pleasure of the imagination, a pleasure of no reality, the only true pleasure of the poet; in a minute of real life they may grant me one of the rare moments that bring no disillusionment in their train. And from this impression and others like it something common to them all is liberated, something whose superiority to our everyday realities, even the realities of thought, and passion, and sentiment, we shall never be able to account for. Yet this superiority is so positive that it is almost the only thing we can never doubt. And when we recognise this thing, this common essence of our impressions, we feel a pleasure like no other pleasure, and while it stays with us we know that death is negligible. And after we have read pages containing the loftiest thought and the noblest sentiments and have remarked, “That’s really quite good,” if, suddenly and without our knowledge why or wherefore, from some seemingly casual word a breath of that essence is wafted to us, we know that this is Beauty.

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.