CP 02844/en

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This page is a translated version of the page CP 02844 and the translation is 100% complete.
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Marcel Proust to Lucien Daudet [Monday evening 16 November 1914, or shortly after]

(Click on the link above to see this letter and its notes in the Corr-Proust digital edition, including all relevant hyperlinks.)

[1]

My dear little one,

If it were not such a joy - as much as we are able to feel any at this time - to receive a letter like yours, and from someone about whom I have never stopped thinking for a single day with ever increasing tenderness, it is already such a relief to read those pages in which there is no mention of “the Boche”, “their Kultur”, “crying like a little child”, “little sister”, nor all the rest of it. In any case we can easily tolerate all those things the more we suffer when we think about the martyrdom of the soldiers and officers, so moved are we by their sacrifice.

But all the same if the press, and especially Le Figaro[2], had higher standards then victory would be all the more glorious.

Frédéric Masson, whose style of an old grumbler I have often enjoyed in the past, is far too much at the present time the embodiment of French “culture”. If he is sincere in finding the Meistersingers inept and self inflicted through snobbery, he is more to be pitied than those people he declares to be afflicted with “Wagneritis”[3]. If instead of being at war with Germany we had been at war with Russia, what would people have said about Tolstoy and Dostoevsky? It is simply that, since contemporary German literature is so dull that we can’t even discover a single name and a title which the critics of “Foreign Literature” tell us about from time to time only for us to forget them straight away, and not knowing where to start, we limit ourselves to Wagner[4].

My dear little one, I don’t know why I’m telling you all this and so stupidly, because through brevity I completely distort my thoughts, which are not the ones you might imagine. In a word, my dear little one, besides all that, you haven’t written to me for two months, since the outbreak of war, but truly there has not been a single day when I haven’t spent hours of my time with you. My dear little one, you cannot believe how my current affection grafted onto that of former times has taken on a new force; but I’m sure you don’t believe me. You will see, in the end.

My dear little one, I found out a month afterwards that your brother-in-law had suffered an automobile accident, but I had no idea that Léon had been in it and had been seriously injured. Could you ever imagine that I wouldn’t have written to you! So were you in the motor car as well? (since you say: I had Léon beside me injured). Retrospectively I am very upset to hear this[5]. I shall write to your brother. I was going to do so anyway to tell him of my admiration. War, alas, has confirmed, consecrated and immortalized his “Pre-war”[6]. Ever since Balzac, we have never known a man of imagination discover so forcefully a social law (in the sense where Newton (?) discovered the law of gravity[7]). Yes I was going to write to him about that, and I wouldn’t have mentioned the accident! I hope that even though his prophesy was not listened to, we will know how to “apply” his discovery and put it into practice, you and I, Post-war. But I do not think (and I think this is also your brother’s opinion even though I haven't read his articles) that it must consist in making us inferior, depriving, I don’t say our musicians, but our writers, of the prodigious fecundation that it is to hear Tristan, and the Ring Cycle, like Péladan who no longer wants us to learn German[8] (which General Pau and General Joffre[9], fortunately speak fluently).

My dear little one, I too was tormented over my brother, his hospital at Étain was bombarded while he was operating, the shells smashing his operating table. He was mentioned in despatches in any case, but not for that, for countless other acts of courage that he never ceases to perform[10]. Unfortunately he is moving forward into the most terrible dangers, and until the end of the war I don’t what news the next day is going to bring me.

As for me I am to go before a medical board and I shall probably be taken, because they take everybody. But I have been stupid because I didn’t need to get myself registered, having been struck off the staff as an officer[11] and these Boards are only for privates, according to what Clément de Maugny[12] told me, when he came to see me one evening[13] as he was passing through Paris; a very nice chap, having much improved, probably under his wife’s influence. He spoke to me very kindly about you and with great admiration for your last book[14]. I must say that he seemed to me infinitely less enthusiastic about Swann! And we have even both been sidelined by a book by somebody who he is close to and which is especially interesting, it appears, because it talks about “people we know”[15]. He, [Maugny][16] has written a book (historical I think[17]) and has spoken to me about “ready copies” (?). I don’t really know what that means. Aside from that, all very “couldn’t give a damn”, “the General said: send me [Maugny][18]", but also with a simplicity full of real grace, which even struck my housekeeper (who is also my cook, valet, etc.): “Such simplicity for a Vicomte[19]! »

My dear little one, until my appearance at the review board I shall look after myself, so that I will be able to go to it. But all the same if you come to Paris I will be able to receive you (but I don’t get up). Afterwards, if I’m not “taken”, so much the easier. But I will be.

My dear little one, everything I have to say to you would fill volumes, and I wanted to reply to you straight away so as not to let myself be “decimated” by this burst of feeling towards you if I were to resist. I hope that you don’t have too many of your friends listed as “killed in action”, but one loves even those one does not know, we weep even for the unknown.

And on this subject, my dear little one, I was utterly stupefied by something I was told: ill-informed as I am about the magnitude and the steady brightness of the new stars that have been shining for some time, I thought I owed a lot of respect towards M. [Z…][20] who I have never read, but who I was told possessed some genius. But I was quoted these words of his the other day, which made me sick and that I can’t quite believe are accurate. I am writing them out completely word for word where they concern people I don’t know and whose names I wouldn’t be able to invent, even less their first names: “Yes, this war! But in the end it would have this result at least, of reconciling Célimène and Alceste (Comte and Comtesse de [X.], née [***]). Oronte told me to tell you that Valère had done very well”, (these first names stand for M. [de A.] and the young Duc [de B] don’t they). “What I can’t endure is when I learn of the death of somebody of good family” (that’s to say fashionable). “Oh yes! to find out that a [***] has been killed is a terrible blow to me.” Can it really be possible! I wouldn’t have believed M. [Y.] or any other buffoon capable, I’m not saying of speaking, but of thinking like that, but a writer, a philosopher! […] I hope that none of it is true. I don’t deny anything […] and I think that the “people from good families” are sometimes very good. But their death can’t cause me greater pain than that of others. And the chance nature of friendships has meant that so far they have caused me much less.

As for those killed in the war they are exemplary, even more than can be expressed. Everything that has been written about poor Psichari, who I didn’t know but I heard so much about, is completely false[21]. And apart from one or two of them, those literary men who now think that they are “serving” through their writing, talk very badly about it all. (There are exceptions - have you read “Les Trois Croix” by Daniel Halévy in the Débats[22], a paper in which, incidentally, there is an article every day by I don’t know who, called “The Military Situation”, which is remarkable and plainly written).

In any case all these men of importance are as ignorant as children. I don’t know if you read an article by General Zurlinden about the origin of the word Boche, which, according to him, only goes back to last September when our soldiers etc[23]. He too must never have talked with anybody who wasn’t of “good family”. Otherwise he would have known as well as me that servants, the common people, have always said: “a head like a Boche”, “he’s a dirty Boche”. I must say that coming from them it is often quite droll (as in the wonderful story about Paulhan’s flight engineer[24]). But when the academicians say “Boche” with a false heartiness as they address the people, like grown ups who lisp when they are talking to children (Donnay, Capus, Hanotaux[25] etc.[26]) it is excruciating.

My dear little one, I am paralysed with fatigue and I no longer have the strength to give you all the news about Reynaldo. He was at Melun and having asked to be sent East he was sent to Albi, from where however, alas, he will leave for “the trenches” […] Since the start of this war I can’t tell you all the proofs of moral nobility that he has shown. I’m not just talking from the point of view of the war, but even indirectly. […] Truly Reynaldo is a rock of goodness on which we can build and live. And truly good. He is truly beyond measure […][27] the suffering. And I don’t know why I cite that particular example. If you want to write to him it would be best to write to him at his regiment, Hôtel du Vigan Albi Tarn. I’m sure that would give him great deal of pleasure because he has very special feelings for you and quotes you at his every word, never comparing you other than favourably

My dear little one, please present my respectful best wishes at the feet of Madame your mother and Madame your sister, I shall write to your brother. A thousand tender thoughts from your

Marcel

P.S. Hôtel Brunswick seems to be a bit “Boche”[28]. It’s true that Béranger[29] neutralizes it though.

“Odile”[30] is also very “Jumilhac"[31] as M. Corpechot[32] would say, also very “Barrès”[33], but above all must be very nice being as she is your niece[34].

[35] [36]

Notes

  1. ↑ The mention of an article by Daniel Halévy in the Journal des Débats of 17 November 1914 (an evening paper) allows us to date this letter from Monday evening 16 November 1914, or shortly after. [PK, FL, CSz]
  2. ↑ Title suppressed by Lucien Daudet when first published, reinstated after a note in the Christie's auction catalogue. [CSz]
  3. ↑ Frédéric Masson, in an article entitled "L'art sans patrie" (Art without a homeland) that appeared on the front page of L'Écho de Paris, 17 September 1914, said this of Richard Wagner: "Parisians, insulted by this gentleman for not having applauded his music sufficiently, dragged through the mud by him, have drowned out this wretched rhapsody, The Meistersingers, with their bravos, a piece in which they were not even able to see the broadside he was directing against them [...]" In an article printed in the same newspaper on the following 12 October, under the title "La Drogue" (The Drug), he asserted: "[...] Wagnerism being the thorough expression of German culture, the French people afflicted with Wagneritis are voluntarily surrendering to Germany." Frédéric Masson, a historian specialising in the 1st Empire and member of the Académie française since 1903, contributed to La Presse, the Revue de Paris and L'Écho de Paris. [PK]
  4. ↑ Proust, along with many of his contemporaries, knew very little about the German literature that came out at the time, no doubt on account of the war of 1870-1871. [PK]
  5. ↑ A note by Lucien Daudet explains: "On the night of the mobilization, the motor vehicle which was taking the three of us from Paris to La Roche was wrecked in a head on collision with another vehicle." Mme Daudet, in her journal about her family and the war of 1914-1919 (Paris, Fasquelle, 1920), p. 7, relates how, on Sunday 2 August 1914, she received a note written in pencil by her son Lucien saying: "Motor accident outside Artenay close to Orléans, Léon with a head wound; Robert hurt in his hand and face, wounds dressed and out of danger. Lucien uninjured." [PK]
  6. ↑ Léon Daudet's book, L'Avant-guerre. Études et documents sur l'espionnage juif-allemand en France depuis l'affaire Dreyfus (Pre-war. Studies and documents about German-Jewish espionage in France during the Dreyfus Affair), Paris, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1913, reprinted a series of articles that had appeared over eighteen months in L'Action française. [PK, FL]
  7. ↑ Isaac Newton (1642-1787), English physicist, mathematician, astronomer and philosopher, famous for discovering the universal laws of gravity and his analysis of light. Proust's hesitation is understandable, because the German scholar and philosopher Leibniz had made this same discovery before him, but it was Newton who was credited with it. [PK, FL]
  8. ↑ Reference to an article printed on the front page of Le Figaro, 28 September 1914, under the title "Leur lange" (Their Language), in which Péladan wrote: "[...] more German spoken, on the stage, more German language on French soil. Can one still have a friend who is German? [...] More German in the university syllabus. [...] Has it not been demonstrated that we can only talk to them with steel, is it not understood that we can no longer trade with them? So what then is the use of studying German? [...]" [PK]
  9. ↑ General Joffre, Commander-in-Chief of the French forces from 2 August 1914 to 26 December 1916, had gained great popularity as the "Victor of the Marne" (5-13 September 1914). [PK, FL]
  10. ↑ It was primarily for having operated on the wounded whilst under enemy fire that Robert Proust was given his citation in the army lists, on 30 September 1914, as Proust says. He was also promoted to the rank of Captain around the same time. (See CP 02826 and 02827; Kolb, XIII, no. 175 and no. 176). [PK, FL]
  11. ↑ Proust had been struck off the lists of reserve officers of the territorial army, on his request, by presidential decree on 30 August 1911 (see the correspondence from the Medical Inspector of the Ministry of War, dated 6 September 1911: Kolb, X, no. 168) and his striking off the list being announced to him on 11 September 1911 (see Kolb, X, no. 169). [NM]
  12. ↑ Name suppressed and replaced by "N..." by Lucien Daudet in the first publication, suggested by Philip Kolb. We have reinstated it from the description in the Christie's sales catalogue. [CSz]
  13. ↑ According to the summary of Clément de Maugny's military service in his Légion d'Honneur records he left for the front on 17 November 1914. He could have paid a visit to Proust in the days before then. [FL]
  14. ↑ The "last book" published by Lucien Daudet was L'Impératrice Eugénie (The Empress Eugénie), Paris, Fayard, 1911. [PK]
  15. ↑ This could refer to a book published in February 1914 by Clément de Maugny's father, Comte Charles-Albert de Maugny (1839-1918): Cinquante ans de souvenirs (Fifty Years of Recollections), 1859-1909, Paris, Plon, 1914. A former army officer, member of the Jockey Club, political chronicler, he had written for the principal Paris newspapers (Le Gaulois, Le Figaro, Paris-Journal, La Patrie, Le Soir) and had been the political editor of L'Illustration, La Vie parisienne and Le Journal. His recollections of Paris life inevitably featured people that Proust and Clément de Maugny would have known. [FL]
  16. ↑ Name suppressed and replaced by "N..." by Lucien Daudet in the first publication. Not having access to the original it is difficult to reinstate the name, which could be "Maugny" but could also be "Clément" to differentiate him from his father, Comte de Maugny, if the latter is indeed the author mentioned in the previous sentence. [CSz, FL]
  17. ↑ This may relate to Clément de Maugny's book dedicated to his grandfather: Le Général comte de Maugny, le dernier gouverneur militaire de la Savoie (1798-1859)(General Comte de Maugny, the last military governor of Savoy (1798-1859)), Chambéry, librairie Perrin-Dardel, 1921. It is possible that he wrote much of this book before the war but, interrupted by his military service throughout the whole of the hostilities, he could only finish it and publish it afterwards. [FL]
  18. ↑ Name suppressed and replaced by "N..." by Lucien Daudet in the first publication. We have reinstated it from the description in the Christie's sales catalogue. [CSz]
  19. ↑ The first publication gave: "Such simplicity for an aristocrat!" in order to protect the identity of de Maugny. We have reinstated the text from the description in the Christie's sales catalogue. Clément de Maugny held the title of Vicomte up until his father's death, Comte Albert de Maugny, in 1918. [CSz]
  20. ↑ Name suppressed by Lucien Daudet in the first publication. Daudet indicates in a note that "this M. Z..., an obscure writer, died immediately after the war however and did not profit from the local infatuation that Marcel Proust talks about." We do not know the identity of this writer. For this paragraph we have followed Lucien Daudet's version in which he replaces real names with initials and asterisks. Names of characters from Molière (Célimène, Alceste, Oronte) have been substituted by Lucien Daudet for the real first names, as he explains in a note. - Kolb replaced all these substitutions with multiple "[...]" which obscured the reading of the text even more. [PK, CSz]
  21. ↑ From a solemn announcement in Le Gaulois 12 November 1914: "Tués et blessés à l'ennemi" (Killed and Wounded by the Enemy), his death prompted some eulogistic obituaries over the following days: see Le Journal 13 November 1914: "A grandson of Renan killed by the enemy"; L'Intransigeant 13 November 1914: "The death of Ernest Psichari". He was the author of L'Appel des armes (The Call to Arms), (1913). [PK]
  22. ↑ Daniel Halévy, "Les Trois Croix" (The Three Crosses), Journal des Débats, 17 November 1914. Halévy had translated it and reprinted it from an English newspaper. The same act of military heroism was reported briefly in Le Journal and L'Intransigeant 15 November. In a letter to D. Halévy written immediately after reading this article (CP 02843, Kolb, XIII, no. 192), Proust confessed that he had wept over this moving account. [PK, CSz]
  23. ↑ Allusion to an article printed on the front page of Le Figaro 12 November 1914, under the title "Vers l'Alsace" (Forwards to the Alsace), by General Zurlinden. Zurlinden claimed: "There have already been many explanations given for the origin of the appellation "Boche", as given to the Germans, following our first foray in the current war into Haute-Alsace, Altkirch and Mulhouse. It is probable that on their return to France our troops, misremembering the name "Schwob" which they must have heard repeated endlessly in Alsace, turned the word around, taking out the "w", and making "Boche" [...]." General Zurlinden had been Minister of War and military governor of Paris several times. [PK]
  24. ↑ On its front page on 27 October 1914, under the title "L'aviateur Paulhan et son mécanicien" (The airman Paulhan and his flight engineer), Le Temps quoted long extracts from a letter printed the day before in Le Petit Provençal in which the young engineer wittily recounted in colloquial language the events that happened during a flight over enemy lines. [PK]
  25. ↑ From October 1914 Maurice Donnay, Alfred Capus and Gabriel Hanotaux all contributed to the "leader" in Le Figaro, with inflammatory, patriotic and malignant editorials. -Donnay's article of 3 October, entitled "Les Boches" began: "The name is adopted; it means exactly what it says: stupidity and brutality, square heads and flat feet, a rabble!"; in "Contre la grâce" (Against grace), 18 October, he declares: "The Boche are everywhere [etc.]"; see also "On aura des notes" (We must take note), 8 November. From the pens of Capus and Hontaux, on the other hand, we do not find the word "Boche" but a hatred of the German "barbarian": Capus writes of the "passage of their hordes" ("La fausse victoire" (The False Victory), 11 October), and of "their audacity and their barbarity" ("La Femme de Paris" (The Parisian Woman), 13 October), and of their "degrading bestiality",("Roi et Kaiser" (King and Kaiser), 29 October); Hanotaux writes of their "rasping gullet" ("À Calais, à tout prix !" (To Calais at all costs!), 31 October). [FL]
  26. ↑ This "etc." of Proust's is alluding to all the intellectuals who were fuelling the xenophobic propaganda of the newspapers by reinforcing simplistic stereotypes. [FL]
  27. ↑ At this point Lucien Daudet has cut out approximately one whole page of text, corresponding to pages "18" and "19" as written by Proust. We can also note the discontinuity with the following text. [NM]
  28. ↑ Lucien Daudet, who had been discharged, was posted to the Red Cross in Tours at the start of the war. In an unpublished letter to Albert Flament dated 29 November 1914, Lucien Daudet wrote: "Leaving on Thursday, I'll be at Hotel Brunswick, 66 Boulevard Béranger", so he must have left on Thursday 6 December 1914 (Centre André Gide - Jean Schlumberger, Fondation des Treilles). Proust must have received the same information, making the likely date of this letter towards the end of November. [PK, CSz, FL]
  29. ↑ Boulevard Béranger in Tours is, like many other streets bearing his name, a tribute to the poet and song writer Pierre-Jean de Béranger and an indication of his great celebrity throughout the 19th century. With his pamphlets and his patriotic, revolutionary songs, between 1815 and 1848, he long represented the voice of the people, the "man of the nation". (See Jean Touchard, La Gloire de Béranger, Paris, Armand Colin, 1968.) [FL]
  30. ↑ Odile Chauvelot, Lucien Daudet's niece, was born 9 October 1914. [PK]
  31. ↑ "Jumilhac" is one of the Richelieu's titles. In 1914 the holder of the title was Armand de Chapelle de Jumilhac, Duc de Richelieu, born 1875. His sister, Marie-Augustine-Septimanie-Odile de Chapelle de Jumilhac de Richelieu, born 1879, had married a friend of Proust's in February 1905: Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld. [FL]
  32. ↑ This must refer to Lucien Corpechot (1871-1944) - pseudonym: Curtius - a contributor to various newspapers (Le Temps, L'Écho de Paris, Le Figaro, Excelsior, Le Gaulois) and editor of the literary section of Le Gaulois. He was a pupil (and friend) of Barrès and also had a close friendship with Anna de Noailles. [FL]
  33. ↑ Proust is probably alluding here to the writings of Maurice Barrès about Lorraine and the Alsace, and more particularly to his novel "Les Bastions de l'Est. Au servive de l'Allemagne" (The Eastern Bastions. In the service of Germany) (Paris, Fayard, 1905, republished several times), in which the three central chapters (chapters V, VI, VII) and the conclusion extol Mont Sainte-Odile, its monastery and its history, Odile being the patron saint of the Alsace. In a letter of congratulation to Barrès for his election to the Académie française in February 1906, Proust mentioned it in eulogistic terms ("one of the most beautiful books"), and added: "If my health permits I would like to make a pilgrimage to Sainte-Odile [...]." (CP 01361; Kolb, VI, no. 12). [CSz]
  34. ↑ The use of the masculine adjective "gentil", indicates that he is referring to the name rather than the person. Proust is perhaps responding here to Lucien Daudet's sarcastic comments about the first name chosen for his young niece. In an unpublished letter to Albert Flament dated 19 October 1914, Daudet wrote: "That name Odile is ludicrous!" (Centre André Gide - Jean Schlumberger, Fondation des Treilles). In his 1929 edition of Proust's letters Daudet transforms Proust's postscript into a simple "Odile is very nice", probably to avoid any offence to members of his family. [CSz]
  35. ↑ Translation notes:
  36. ↑ Contributors: Yorktaylors
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