1. Mayeur and Rebérioux, Third Republic from Its Origins to the Great War, 290–91.
2. Butler, Rodin, 490–91. The first number of Clemenceau’s daily, L’Homme Libre, appeared on May 5, 1913, and was influential despite its small circulation (Watson, Georges Clemenceau, 246).
3. Proust signed a petition protesting the verdict, published in Le Figaro on August 1. But by then, events had already overtaken this once-inflammatory case.
4. André Gide to Proust, 10 or 11 January 1914, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:225.
5. Gide to Proust, 20 March 1914, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:237. On the number of volumes Proust then envisioned, see chapter 15, note 30.
6. Proust to Gide, 10 or 11 June 1914, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:268.
7. Isadora Duncan, My Life, 268.
8. Brinnin, Third Rose, 158.
9. Wineapple, Sister Brother, 384.
10. Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein on Picasso, 24, 27.
11. Brinnin, Third Rose, 197.
12. Brinnin, Third Rose, 207.
13. Mugnier, Journal, 29 June 1914, 265.
14. Wharton, A Backward Glance, 336–37.
15. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 1. Adam was the daughter of C. E. Humphrey, one of the first women journalists in Britain, and was married to George Adam, a correspondent for The Times. Both she and her husband served as war correspondents in Paris and France throughout the war.
16. Wharton, A Backward Glance, 338.
17. Mugnier, Journal, 25 July 1914, 266.
18. Ten years after Jaurès’s death, his remains were transferred to the Panthéon. Villain was later tried and acquitted but was killed in 1936 during the Spanish civil war.
19. Sert, Misia and the Muses, 136.
20. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 19.
21. Bertaut, Paris, 1870–1935, 241.
22. Lysiane Sarah Bernhardt and Marion Dix, Sarah Bernhardt, My Grandmother, 208.
23. Poiret, King of Fashion, 215.
24. Proust to Lionel Hauser, Sunday evening, 2 August 1914, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:275. Proust added, “I wonder how a believer, a practicing Catholic like the Emperor Francis-Joseph, convinced that after his impending death he will appear before his God, can face having to account to him for the millions of human lives whose sacrifice it was in his power to prevent” (275). The emperor died on November 21.
25. Kessler, 27 July 1914, in Journey to the Abyss, 640.
26. Isadora Duncan, My Life, 273.
27. Isadora Duncan, My Life, 274.
28. Isadora Duncan, My Life, 276.
29. Kessler, 31 July and 4 August 1914, in Journey to the Abyss, 641, 642. At the war’s outset, Kessler served as commander of an artillery munitions column (three officers, 179 junior officers and men, 186 horses, and a number of supply wagons) (643n).
30. Kessler, 1 August 1914, in Journey to the Abyss, 641.
31. Kessler, 3 August 1914, in Journey to the Abyss, 642.
32. Mugnier, 29 July and 11 August 1914, in Journal, 266–67, 268–69.
33. General Henri-Mathias Berthelot, Joffre’s assistant chief of staff, quoted in Tuchman, Guns of August, 223–24.
34. Although Alex Danchev points out that Picasso arrived at Braque’s bedside after Braque’s almost-deadly battlefield injury in 1915, and argues that “the differences between them were not easily reducible to the ancient schisms of combatant and non-combatant” (Georges Braque, 127).
35. Newark, Camouflage, 72. Gertrude Stein recalled that, upon first seeing a camouflaged army truck on Boulevard Raspail, Picasso cried out, “Yes, it is we who made it, this is cubism” (Gertrude Stein, Gertrude Stein on Picasso, 18).
36. Newark, Camouflage, 68.
37. Helen Pearl Adam noted that by April 1915, the soldiers seen in Paris “wore at least a dozen shades of blue, for experiments were being made as to the most invisible tint. . . . For a while, the official choice fell upon ‘Joffre’ blue, a curious colour formed by interwoven threats of red, white, and blue. Finally, ‘horizon’ blue came to stay” (Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 55).
38. Debussy to Durand, 8 and 18 August 1914, in Debussy Letters, 291, 292.
39. Ravel to Maurice Delage, 4 August 1914, in Ravel Reader, 150.
40. Ravel to Edouard Ravel, 8 August 1914, in Ravel Reader, 151.
41. Ravel to Roland-Manuel, 26 September 1914, in Ravel Reader, 154. Ravel would later dedicate the “Menuet” from Le Tombeau de Couperin to Roland-Manuel’s stepbrother, Jean Dreyfus, who was killed in the war (Ravel Reader, 155n5).
42. Ravel to Roland-Manuel, 26 September 1914, in Ravel Reader, 154.
43. Ravel to Roland-Manuel, 1 October 1914, in Ravel Reader, 155.
44. Wharton, Fighting France, 23.
45. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 21, 31.
46. Marie to Irène, 28 and 31 August 1914, in Eve Curie, Madame Curie, 292.
47. Becker notes that the allowance “was not enough to make up the wages lost by a skilled worker, . . . but it was a sizeable amount for day labourers and even more so for agricultural labourers” (The Great War and the French People, 17).
48. Wharton to Berenson, 22 August [1914], in Letters of Edith Wharton, 334. See also 330 and 393n1. By the war’s end, Wharton wrote, “we had, in addition to five thousand refugees permanently cared for in Paris, and four big colonies for old people and children, four large and well-staffed sanatoria for tuberculosis women and children” (Backward Glance, 349). In recognition of her work for refugees, France in 1916 made Wharton a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor.
49. Wharton to Sara Norton, 2 September [1914], in Letters of Edith Wharton, 335.
50. Sert, Misia and the Muses, 137–38.
51. Quinn, Marie Curie, 355.
52. Quinn, Marie Curie, 356–57.
53. Albaret, Monsieur Proust, 203.
54. Becker, The Great War and the French People, 63.
55. Monet to Geffroy, 1 September 1914, in Monet by Himself, 248.
56. By 1916, Helen Pearl Adam reported that Deauville had become “a perfect orgy of wealth and amusement” (Paris Sees It Through, 86).
57. Chagall, My Life, 122, 123.
58. A German former student and friend of Matisse managed to retrieve these paintings after the war, but Sarah and Michael had already secretly sold them, at bargain prices, to a Danish collector—probably out of fear of never seeing them again (see Spurling, Matisse the Master, 222). Gertrude Stein later sold Matisse’s Femme au chapeau to Michael. She had kept it when she and Leo split up (Richardson, Life of Picasso: The Cubist Rebel, 372).
59. Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 29.
60. Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 23.
61. De Gaulle quoted in Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 29–30.
62. De Gaulle quoted in Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 30.
63. De Gaulle quoted in Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 31.
64. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 33.
65. Count Kessler, while in Liège, described the savagery of German reprisals and the increased incidence of drunkenness among German soldiers. However, he blamed the brutality of German reprisals on the Belgians themselves—“return payment” for their alleged actions (22 August 1914, Journey to the Abyss, 647)—an echo of the official German position. Kessler would not remain in Belgium and France very long; in late August, his corps was transferred to East Prussia and the eastern front (26 August 1914, Journey to the Abyss, 649).
66. Tuchman, Guns of August, 409.
67. Tuchman, Guns of August, 433–34.
17 “This war which never ends” (1914–1915)
Selected sources for this chapter: Bernard and Dubief, Decline of the Third Republic; Tuchman, Guns of August; Becker, The Great War and the French People; Jean Renoir, Renoir: My Father; Wilden
stein, Monet; Monet, Monet by Himself; Timothy Shaw, World of Escoffier; Flanner, Men and Monuments; Danchev, Georges Braque; Klüver and Martin, Kiki’s Paris; Ravel, Ravel Reader; Butler, Rodin; Debussy, Debussy Letters; Adam, Paris Sees It Through; Wharton, Letters of Edith Wharton; Wharton, Fighting France; Lee, Edith Wharton; Bertaut, Paris, 1870–1935; Sicard-Picchiottino, François Coty; Barillé, Coty; Reynolds, André Citroën; Wolgensinger, André Citroën; Rhodes, Louis Renault; Wharton, A Backward Glance; Murphy, Military Aircraft; Voisin, Men, Women, and 10,000 Kites; Orenstein, Ravel; Ravel, Ravel Reader; Wineapple, Sister Brother; Brinnin, Third Rose; Gertrude Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; Proust, Selected Letters, vol. 3; Spurling, Matisse the Master; Marcel Proust, Within a Budding Grove (Vol. 2, In Search of Lost Time), trans. C. K. Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 1998); Proust, Sodom and Gomorrah (Vol. 4, In Search of Lost Time); Marcel Proust, The Captive and The Fugitive (Vols. 5 and 6, In Search of Lost Time), trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 1999); Proust, Time Regained (Vol. 7, In Search of Lost Time), trans. Andreas Mayor and Terence Kilmartin, rev. D. J. Enright (New York: Modern Library, 1993); Albaret, Monsieur Proust; Carter, Marcel Proust; Steegmuller, Cocteau; Richardson, Life of Picasso: The Cubist Rebel; Walsh, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring; Stravinsky, Autobiography; Scheijen, Diaghilev; Isadora Duncan, My Life; Kurth, Isadora; Sturges, Preston Sturges; Gold and Fizdale, Divine Sarah; Lysiane Sarah Bernhardt and Marion Dix, Sarah Bernhardt, My Grandmother; Gottlieb, Sarah; Béatrix Dussane, Reines de Théâtre, 1633–1941 (Lyon, France: H. Lardanchet, 1944); Quinn, Marie Curie; Eve Curie, Madame Curie; Potter, Nadia and Lili Boulanger; Rosenstiel, Life and Works of Lili Boulanger; Lockspeiser, Debussy, vol. 2; Nichols, Life of Debussy; Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel; Williams, Last Great Frenchman.
1. This young man, André Varagnac, was a nephew of Marcel Sembat, the socialist minister of public works (Tuchman, Guns of August, 439n). Despite Varagnac’s fragile health, he enlisted in 1915, and during the following year he was twice buried alive in the trenches—severely damaging his already poor health. Hospitalized in the summer of 1918, he was demobilized at the war’s end.
2. Ravel to Maurice Delage, 21 September 1914, in Ravel Reader, 155n6.
3. Debussy to Nicolas Coronio, [September 1914], in Debussy Letters, 292–93. Stravinsky joined the many other composers and artists who protested the destruction of Louvain and the bombardment of Reims cathedral (Walsh, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring, 244).
4. Debussy to Jacques Durand, 9 October 1914, in Debussy Letters, 294.
5. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 38.
6. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 40.
7. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 42–44. Edith Wharton got around this, in response to a plea by Vincent d’Indy, by giving a series of fund-raising chamber concerts in her apartment “for the poor musicians who are starving” (Wharton to Mary Berenson, 12 January [1915], in Letters of Edith Wharton, 346).
8. Wharton to Mary Berenson, 12 January [1915], in Letters of Edith Wharton, 347.
9. Adam, Paris Sees It Through, 57.
10. Bertaut, Paris, 1870–1935, 245, 246, 250.
11. Rhodes, Louis Renault, 114.
12. Rhodes, Louis Renault, 114.
13. Wharton, A Backward Glance, 352.
14. Wharton to Henry James, 28 February and 14 May 1915, in Letters of Edith Wharton, 348, 350, 356. A subsequent tour of war-ravaged Belgium led her to found the Children of Flanders Rescue Committee, and in early 1916 she helped start a program aimed at curing those soldiers who had contracted tuberculosis in the trenches (Letters of Edith Wharton, 330, 393n1).
15. Fokker had already been experimenting with synchronization designs when he was shown Garros’s propeller.
16. The name of Ravel’s orchestrated version of Valses nobles et sentimentales (Adélaïde, ou le langage des fleurs).
17. Gertrude Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 156.
18. Gertrude Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 157.
19. Gertrude Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, 158, 161.
20. Proust to Georges de Lauris, 30 November 1914, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:294. Dr. Proust had received a commendation and promotion due to his “courage and efficiency under fire” (Proust, Selected Letters, 3:280n9).
21. Later translated as Within a Budding Grove.
22. Albaret, Monsieur Proust, 201.
23. As evidenced by a warm and friendly letter from Proust to Jean Cocteau, 30 or 31 January 1911, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:28. Proust had already written Cocteau that he regretted his superficiality—“the lack of appetite of someone who has been paying New Year visits all day long and eaten too many marrons glacés [candied chestnuts, a typical Parisian holiday treat]. This . . . is the stumbling-block to be feared for your marvelous but sterilized gifts.” Nevertheless, Proust added, “your desires are at present capable of evolving” (Proust to Cocteau, 25 December 1910, in Proust, Selected Letters, 3:25–26).
24. Albaret, Monsieur Proust, 124.
25. Steegmuller, Cocteau, 125.
26. Debussy to Igor Stravinsky, 24 October 1915, in Debussy Letters, 308.
27. Sturges, Preston Sturges, 127.
28. Gold and Fizdale, Divine Sarah, 315–16.
29. Gold and Fizdale, Divine Sarah, 318.
30. Dussane, Reines de Théâtre, 199–200.
31. Dussane, Reines de Théâtre, 200, 201.
32. Debussy to D. E. Inghelbrecht, 30 September 1915, in Debussy Letters, 302.
33. Debussy to Jacques Durand, 24 February 1915, in Debussy Letters, 296.
34. Debussy to Jacques Durand, 28 August 1915, in Debussy Letters, 300.
35. Debussy to Emma, 6 December 1915, in Debussy Letters, 310.
36. Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel, 33.
37. Maurice Curie quoted in Quinn, Marie Curie, 371, 372.
18 “Ils ne passeront pas” (1916)
Selected sources for this chapter: Horne, Price of Glory; Ousby, Road to Verdun; Bernard and Dubief, Decline of the Third Republic; Ravel, Ravel Reader; Orenstein, Ravel; Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Rebel; Williams, Last Great Frenchman; Shattuck, Banquet Years; Flanner, Men and Monuments; Danchev, Georges Braque; Kessler, Journey to the Abyss; Bertaut, Paris, 1870–1935; Lockspeiser, Debussy, vol. 2; Debussy, Debussy Letters; Myers, Erik Satie; Gillmor, Erik Satie; Orledge, Satie Remembered; Steegmuller, Cocteau; Richardson, Life of Picasso: The Cubist Rebel; Gold and Fizdale, Misia; Scheijen, Diaghilev; Adam, Paris Sees It Through; Billy Klüver, A Day with Picasso: Twenty-four Photographs by Jean Cocteau (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1997); Secrest, Modigliani; Gertrude Stein, Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas; Cossart, Food of Love; Walsh, Stravinsky: A Creative Spring; Stravinsky and Craft, Memories and Commentaries; Mary E. Davis, Classic Chic: Music, Fashion, and Modernism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006); Poiret, King of Fashion; Mugnier, Journal; Isadora Duncan, My Life; Kurth, Isadora; Irma Duncan, Duncan Dancer; Monet, Monet by Himself; Wildenstein, Monet, vol. 1; Wharton, A Backward Glance; Gottlieb, Sarah; Gold and Fizdale, Divine Sarah; Lysiane Sarah Bernhardt and Marion Dix, Sarah Bernhardt, My Grandmother; Nichols, Life of Debussy; Gaston-Louis Marchal, Ossip Zadkine: La sculpture—toute une vie (Rodez, France: Editions du Rouergue, 1992); Benstock, Women of the Left Bank; Butler, Rodin; Champigneulle, Rodin; David I. Harvie, Eiffel: The Genius Who Reinvented Himself (Stroud, UK: Sutton, 2004); Murphy, Military Aircraft; Voisin, Men, Women, and 10,000 Kites.
1. According to Ousby (Road to Verdun, 5), there were 708,777 casualties (including both sides), with 162,440 French and 143,000 Germans killed.
2. Ousby, Road to Verdun, 9.
3. Ravel to Madame Joseph Ravel, 19 March 1916, in Ravel Reader, 161.
4. Ravel to Lucien Garban, 8 May 1916, in Ravel
Reader, 165.
5. Ravel to Major A. Blondel, 27 May 1916, excerpted in Ravel Reader, 167–68n3.
6. Ravel to Major A. Blondel, 27 May 1916, excerpted in Ravel Reader, 168n3.
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