Translations:CP 02902/16/en

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↑ Since the beginning of the First World War, when mobilization in mid summer had interrupted society life, Mme Edwards had remained a very active hostess, her connections with prominent government figures as much as with the advanced musical and literary circles made her salon a politico-artistic hotspot. According to her biography by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale (Misia: The Life of Misia Sert, New York, Vintage Books, 1992, p. 162-212), she had organized a network of ambulances from the beginning of the conflict, several leading couturiers whose premises had been closed having agreed to place their delivery wagons and motor vehicles at her disposal for use as ambulances, and she herself went to the front to bring back the wounded along with Sert and Cocteau (for whom the couturier Poiré had designed costumes that were appropriate in the context of the war). During the aerial bombardments over Paris, she went outdoors or onto her balcony with her guests to watch the spectacle, having an aesthetic and exalted vision of these unprecedented events. Her soirées brought together a number of artists, including Cocteau, Satie, Gide, Jacques-Émile Blanche, or the musicians and artists of the Ballets Russes whose careers she watched over. Due to the restrictions on coal, she entertained most often in her private apartment at the Hôtel Meurice, being unable to heat her apartment in 29, Quai Voltaire. — Even though Proust doesn't comment here in his letter to Lucien Daudet on this first society soirée he attended since mobilization ("too much to say"), he must have drawn from it a train of reflections which, augmented by those from numerous other soirées (notably in 1916-1917), enriched his depictions of Parisian social life during the war, and in particular the mutation of Mme Verdurin's "artistic" salon into one of the foremost politico-artistic salons (see RTP, IV, p. 301-313). [FL]

[n6-1] Since the beginning of the First World War, when mobilization in mid summer had interrupted society life, Mme Edwards had remained a very active hostess, her connections with prominent government figures as much as with the advanced musical and literary circles made her salon a politico-artistic hotspot. According to her biography by Arthur Gold and Robert Fizdale (Misia: The Life of Misia Sert, New York, Vintage Books, 1992, p. 162-212), she had organized a network of ambulances from the beginning of the conflict, several leading couturiers whose premises had been closed having agreed to place their delivery wagons and motor vehicles at her disposal for use as ambulances, and she herself went to the front to bring back the wounded along with Sert and Cocteau (for whom the couturier Poiré had designed costumes that were appropriate in the context of the war). During the aerial bombardments over Paris, she went outdoors or onto her balcony with her guests to watch the spectacle, having an aesthetic and exalted vision of these unprecedented events. Her soirées brought together a number of artists, including Cocteau, Satie, Gide, Jacques-Émile Blanche, or the musicians and artists of the Ballets Russes whose careers she watched over. Due to the restrictions on coal, she entertained most often in her private apartment at the Hôtel Meurice, being unable to heat her apartment in 29, Quai Voltaire. — Even though Proust doesn't comment here in his letter to Lucien Daudet on this first society soirée he attended since mobilization ("too much to say"), he must have drawn from it a train of reflections which, augmented by those from numerous other soirées (notably in 1916-1917), enriched his depictions of Parisian social life during the war, and in particular the mutation of Mme Verdurin's "artistic" salon into one of the foremost politico-artistic salons (see RTP, IV, p. 301-313). [FL]

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Translations:CP 02902/16/en

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