34 the “Valse des Roses” or “Pauvre Fou” by Tagliafico: Both pieces in “bad taste.” The “Valse des Roses” was the best-known composition of Olivier Métra, conductor at the Châtelet and the Folies Bergères; Joseph Dieudonné Tagliafico was a French opera singer who made his debut in 1844 at the Théâtre Des Italiens. He wrote a ballad whose correct title is “Pauvres Fous” (Poor Lunatics).
35 Watteau: Antoine Watteau (1684-1721), French painter said to have spent hours in the Luxembourg Gardens sketching the faces and figures of the passersby.
36 the rue Abbatucci: Former name, from 1868 to 1879, of part of the rue de La Boétie, in the eighth arrondissement.
37 the Vicomte de Borelli: Raymond de Borelli (1827-1906) was a society poet.
38 the avenue de l’Impératrice: In the sixteenth arrondissement, it runs from the place de l’Étoile to the Porte Dauphine. It was created in 1854 and called by this name until the 1870s, when, with the fall of the Empire, it was renamed avenue du Bois de Boulogne, finally becoming avenue Foch in 1929.
39 the Tour du Lac: The lac in question is the lake (in fact two lakes) in the Bois de Boulogne. In Proust’s day, the favorite promenade routes led from the avenues to the lake. Tour du Lac must refer to a road around the lakes.
40 Éden Théâtre: Theater erected in 1882 for the performance mainly of ballets; it was located on the rue Boudreau near the Opéra.
41 Hippodrome: A stadium located, from 1875 to 1892, between the avenue de l’Alma and the avenue Marceau. It held ten thousand spectators and presented races, ballets, horse shows, and other performances.
42 darling: In English in the original.
43 Château de Blois: Historic castle on the Loire River, and a favorite residence of the French kings during the sixteenth century. It combines styles from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries and is in fact remarkable for its elaborate Renaissance chimney pieces, which rise to the ceiling.
44 La Reine Topaz: The Topaz Queen, a comic opera with music by Victor Massé first performed in 1856.
45 muffins and toasts: In English in the original, including the eccentric plural of “toasts.”
46 “Thé de la rue Royale”: Ancient establishment which at the turn of the century was located at 3 and 12, rue Royale and served afternoon tea in the English style.
47 Serge Panine: 1881 novel by Georges Ohnet first produced as a play in 1882. Ohnet (1848-1918) was a dramatist and the author of sentimental novels immensely popular with the public and disparaged by the critics. His Le Maître de Forges, mentioned elsewhere, was a novel and play produced with great success during the 1884 season.
48 Olivier Métra: Métra (1830-89) was a French composer and conductor best known for his waltzes.
49 the Righi: Mountain in Switzerland, with villages at its foot and hotels at intervals on the way to the summit, from which there is a wonderful panorama. The Riviera and Switzerland, along with the English things one could find there, were very much in vogue at the time.
50 “Blanche? Blanche de Castille”: “White”; Blanche de Castille (1188- 1252) was the wife of Louis VIII and mother of Louis IX.
51 Suger and other Saint Bernards: The Chronicle of Saint-Denis, a history of the kings of France, was begun by Abbot Suger in the twelfth century and continued at the Abbey of Saint-Denis until 1286.
52 Henry Plantagenet: Henry II of England (1133-89) married Eleanor of Aquitaine in 1152. The latter was not the mother of Blanche de Castille, but her grandmother.
53 Rembrandt or Hals: The Night Watch by Rembrandt (1606-69) is an open-air scene depicting militia and a variety of other types of faces; The Regents by Franz Hals (1580-1666) is a group portrait of lady governors of the Almshouse of Haarlem. It hangs in the museum of Haarlem.
54 the Ninth and the Winged Victory: The reference is to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony and The Winged Victory of Samothrace, a Greek statue of a draped and winged woman found on the island of Samothrace in 1863 and now standing at the top of the Daru Staircase in the Louvre.
55 play by Dumas: Alexandre Dumas, known as Dumas fils (1824-95), French dramatist and novelist. The Japanese salad appears in his play Francillon.
56 “speech”: In English in the original.
57 the La Trémoïlles: A celebrated family whose duchy was one of the oldest in France.
58 lost wax: The wax model from which a metal sculpture is cast.
59 the Palais de l’Industrie: The Palais de l’Industrie (Hall of Industry) was built for the Exposition of 1855 on the site of the present Grand Palais and Petit Palais beside the Seine. It housed the annual salons of painting and sculpture.
60 Fénelon: François de Salgnac de la Mothe-Fénelon (1651-1715), French theologian who was in charge of the education of the grandsons of Louis XIV. In his Treatise on the Existence and Attributes of God, he defines God as “universal intelligence” and “infinitely intelligible.” He posits that nothing is intelligent except through God, but intelligence is “real in His creatures”; our ideas “are a perpetual mingling of God’s infinite being which is our object, and of the limits He gives always and essentially to each creature.”
61 Trémouailles: Brichot is pronouncing the name incorrectly; it should be “Trémoïlles.”
62 Se non è vero: First words of the adage Se non è vero, è ben trovato: “If it isn’t true, it’s still a happy thought.”
63 the Duc d’Aumale: A pun on the name of the fourth son of King Louis-Philippe and the word mâle, “male.”
64 Baronne Putbus: According to Gotha’s Almanac, the Putbus family dated back to the twelfth century, at which time it owned a château and fifteen villages in Pomerania.
65 “ ‘sonata-snake’ ”: The Marquise Diane de Saint-Paul, a brilliant pianist and a scandalmonger, was known in Proust’s circle as the “serpent à sonates,” or “sonata-snake.” The nickname is a play on the word for rattlesnake, serpent à sonnettes.
66 Gustave Moreau: French painter (1826-98), whose subjects were products of imagination and fantasy and whose refined and sensual aestheticism interested Proust.
67 the Île des Cygnes: “Island of the Swans,” an island in the larger of the two lakes in the Bois de Boulogne.
68 the Primavera: Painting by Botticelli which hangs in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence.
69 Moses pour water into a trough: Botticelli depicted the child Jesus playing with a pomegranate in his Madonna della Melagrana; in the Sistine Chapel, one of the scenes from Botticelli’s Trials of Moses shows the prophet drawing water for the flocks of the daughters of Jethro.
70 Chatou: A village on the banks of the Seine ten miles from Paris, a popular spot, in the latter part of the nineteenth century, with fishermen, boaters, and Impressionist painters.
71 Labiche comedy: Eugène Labiche (1815-88) was a French dramatist and author of comedies of manners and vaudevilles.
72 Bossuet: Jacques Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704), theologian, moralist, and one of the great orators of French history.
73 Dante’s last circle: The last book of The Divine Comedy places the greatest sinners in the ninth circle of Hell.
74 Noli me tangere: “Do not touch me”—words attributed by John to Jesus Christ addressing Mary Magdalen.
75 Une Nuit de Cléopatre: “A Night with Cleopatra,” a work by Victor Massé (1822-84), composer of La Reine Topaze and Paul et Virginie. Une Nuit de Cléopatre was first performed in 1885.
76 the tombs at Dreux . . . the Château de Pierrefonds: The royal chapel of Dreux contains the tombs of the princes of Orléans. The château of Pierrefonds, at the edge of the forest of Compiègne, was originally built by Louis d’Orléans in the fifteenth century, fell into ruins, was bought by Napoleon I, and was eventually entrusted to the care of Viollet-le-Duc by Napoleon III in 1857. Restoration work was completed in 1884.
77 Beauvais or Saint-Loup-de-Naud: The Cathedral of Saint-Pierre de Beauvais, built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, is famous for its Gothic choir. The Roman churc
h of Saint-Loup-de-Naud, in the département of Seine-et-Marne, is one of the oldest in France.
78 the Map of Love: An allegorical map devised by the novelist Madeleine de Scudéry (1607-1701) and introduced in her novel Clélie (1654-60). The Map of Love shows three different roads leading to true love.
79 the church at Brou: The church at Brou, near Bourg-en-Bresse, was built by the order of Margaret of Austria in memory of her husband, Philibert le Beau (1480-1504), Duke of Savoie.
80 Lapérouse: This restaurant lies outside Odette’s “smart” territory, on the quai des Grands-Augustins quite close to the quai d’Orléans, where Swann lives.
81 “Bal des Incohérents”: “Ball of the Incoherents.” The Incoherents were artists who mocked the official salons and organized highly successful exhibitions of their own starting in 1882. They celebrated the opening day with a costume ball.
82 my love: In English in the original.
83 the season at Bayreuth: Inaugurated in 1876, the Festspielhaus, Wagner’s model theater at Bayreuth, became the international center of the cult of Wagner beginning in 1882. The five castles of Louis II of Bavaria (1845-86) were inspired by Versailles or by the German legends that Wagner used in his operas.
84 Clapisson: Antonin-Louis Clapisson (1808-66), whose music had already gone out of fashion in 1880, was a French composer of comic operas.
85 Mme. de Maintenon: Françoise d’Aubigné de Maintenon (1635-1719) secretly married Louis XIV in 1684. Saint-Simon entitled one section of his Mémoires “Mechanics, private life and conduct of Mme. de Maintenon,” and detailed the items of her table.
86 Lully: Jean Baptiste Lully (1632-87), Italian-born French composer.
87 Septennate: Seven-year term of a French president. The term Proust is most probably referring to is that of Edmé Patrice, Comte de MacMahon, which began in 1873 and ended with his resignation in 1879.
88 Botticelli’s Primavera, bella Vanna, or Venus: Primavera, the goddess of spring, is depicted in Botticelli’s Spring; the “bella Vanna” in Giovanna Tomabuoni and the Three Graces; and Venus in The Birth of Venus.
89 Balzac’s “tigers”: In both French and English a “tiger” was a gentleman’s groom, either a boy or a small man. In his pastiche of Balzac (in Pastiches et mélanges), Proust refers to “Paddy, the famous tiger of the late Baudenord.”
90 paintings by Mantegna: Mantegna, an Italian painter and engraver (c. 1430-1506), was part of a team that decorated the Church of the Erimitani at Padua between 1449 and 1456. In the Ovetari Chapel of that church are the Scenes from the Life of Saint John and Saint Christopher. In The Martyrdom of Saint John a warrior meditates, leaning on his shield. Mantegna painted the Altarpiece of San Zeno, at Verona, between 1456 and 1459.
91 some Albrecht Dürer Saxon: Dürer (1471-1528) was influenced by Mantegna, whose engravings he copied.
92 cadogan: Hairstyle in which a bunch of hair is folded twice at the back of the head and tied with a ribbon.
93 Goya: Francisco de Goya (1746-1828), Spanish painter several of whose paintings hung in the Louvre in Proust’s day, though it is unclear which painting Proust is referring to.
94 Benvenuto Cellini: Florentine goldsmith, sculptor, and writer (1500-1571). It is not clear which work by Cellini Proust has in mind here.
95 Orphée: Orphée et Eurydice (1762) by Christoph Willibald Gluck (1714-87), a German-born composer whose music is considered French. The flute solo occurs in act 2, as Orpheus is searching the Elysian Fields in the Underworld for his lost beloved, Eurydice.
96 Liszt: Franz Liszt (1811-86), Hungarian pianist and composer who lived in Paris for some years (c. 1840). One of the two légendes he wrote for piano solo is titled St. François prédicant aux oiseaux.
97 Princesse Mathilde: Daughter of Jéròme Bonaparte. Princesse Mathilde (1820-1904) entertained the most brilliant members of the artistic and literary world. Among her guests were Taine, Renan, the Goncourts, and Flaubert.
98 Legitimist: In French history, a supporter of claims to the monarchy based on the rights of heredity.
99 baignoire: Literally, “bathtub”—a ground-floor theater box, projecting and rounded like a bathtub.
100 Mérimée: Prosper Mérimée (1803-70), widely traveled French writer noted for his exoticism.
101 Meilhac and Halévy: Henri Meilhac (1831-97) was a French author of drawing-room comedies and opera libretti; Ludovic Halévy (1834-1908), French librettist, was his collaborator.
102 “‘guests from Belloir’s’”: Belloir’s, in the rue de la Victoire in Paris, rented supplies for dances and parties.
103 “ ‘Empire’ ”: The style of furniture which became popular during the Empire (1804-15) favored mahogany and was cubic and massive, with gilded or antique green and bronze trim and dark marble tops. Common decorative devices were sphinxes, laurel wreaths, Winged Victories, sheaves, and cornucopias. Napoleon’s symbol, the bee, replaced the royal fleur-de-lis.
104 most astonishing name: The joke here, on the name Cambremer, sees it as being made up of abbreviations of Cambronne and merde (shit). Le mot de Cambronne, “Cambronne’s word,” said to have been uttered by Cambronne, a general at Waterloo, is the traditional euphemism for merde.
105 the Hôtel Vouillemont: The Hôtel Vouillemont was in the rue Boissy d’Anglas. In an 1863 guide to Paris it was described as a quiet first-class hotel.
106 La Princesse de Clèves or of René: La Princesse de Clèves (1678), a novel by Mme. de La Fayette, tells the tragic story of the frustrated love of a young married noblewoman for a gallant young duke; René (1805) is a tale by Chateaubriand recounting the passion between a brother and sister.
107 of a Lavoisier, of an Ampère: Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier (1743-94), a French chemist, one of the fathers of modern chemistry, to which he contributed the law of conservation of matter; André Marie Ampère (1775-1836), French mathematician and physicist who propounded the theory of electromagnetism.
108 Nicolas Maes . . . Vermeer: Nicolas Maes (c. 1634-93), Dutch painter. It is unclear who painted Diana with Her Companions and Maes was once considered as a possible candidate.
109 You’re never as unhappy as you think: The allusion here is to the forty-ninth maxim of François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-80), French moralist and author of Maximes (1665): “One is never either as happy or as unhappy as one imagines.”
110 Les Filles de Marbre by Théodore Barrière: The play (literally, “Girls of Marble”) (1853) is about courtesans who are cold and unfeeling.
111 to call her tu: In French, the distinction is still made between the formal “you,” vous, and the informal tu; and in the period in which this novel is set, the formal “you” was far more prevalent even among children and within families.
112 Journal d’un Poète by Alfred de Vigny: A journal written by Alfred de Vigny (1797-1863), French poet, novelist, and dramatist. The passage quoted is dated April 22, 1833, and is an exact quotation.
113 the Desolation of Nineveh: An allusion to Ruskin’s The Bible of Amiens, which appeared in Proust’s translation in 1904. Ruskin points out the beasts of Nineveh on the facade of the cathedral of Amiens crawling “among the tottering walls and peeping out of their rents and crannies.”
114 the three travelers: Four, actually.
115 the Mirlitons: An annual art show held each February by the Cercle de l’Union Artistique, a club created by the merger of the Cercle des Champs-Élysées and Les Mirlitons.
116 Machard: Jules-Louis Machard (1839-1900) first showed in the Salon of 1863. He was a fashionable portrait painter for many years.
117 Leloir: Probably Jean-Baptiste-Auguste Leloir (1809-92), a French academic historical and religious painter who also did occasional portraits.
PART III: Place-Names: The Name
1 “modern style”: In English in the original.
2 Exposition: These illuminated fountains were installed on the Champsde-Mars for the Exposition of 1889.
3 at Finistère its
elf: Département at the western extreme of Brittany; the name derives from the Latin, finis terrae, “land’s end.”
4 the Great Bear: Name of the constellation also called the Plow or the Big Dipper.
5 Saint-Mary-of-the-Flowers: Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral of Florence which Proust refers to by its French name, Sainte-Marie-des-Fleurs.
6 La Chartreuse: “The Charterhouse,” referring to La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma, 1839), a novel by Stendhal (Henri Beyle; 1783-1842).
7 fabliau: A short, usually comic, frankly coarse, and often cynical tale in verse popular in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
8 Vitré: Vitré is also an adjective meaning “glazed,” “having windowpanes.”
9 the coach followed by the fly: A play on the expression faire la mouche du coche, literally be the fly in the coach, i.e., buzz around, be a busybody.
10 the school of Giorgione . . . medieval domestic architecture: Here and elsewhere in this passage Proust is quoting or adapting John Ruskin’s Modern Painters and Stones of Venice. Giorgio de Castelfranco, known as Giorgione (c. 1478-1510), was an Italian painter who spent his life in the vicinity of Venice. He and Titian frescoed the outside walls of certain buildings during the period when they worked as housepainters.
11 “bossed with jasper and paved with emeralds”: Variation of quotation from Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.
12 reddened by reflections from Giorgione’s frescoes: Modified quotation from Ruskin. In his Modern Painters, he says, “I saw the last traces of the greatest works of Giorgione yet glowing like a scarlet cloud on the Fondaco de’ Tedeschi.”
13 “majestic . . . blood-red cloaks”: Modified quotation from Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.
14 “rocks of amethyst like a reef in the Indian Ocean”: Modified quotation from Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.
15 Poussin: Nicolas Poussin (1594-1665), French classic painter. The reference is probably to L’Empire de Flore, which shows the chariot of the sun driven over the clouds behind four horses. The scene below is a garden.
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