Translations:CP 03978/14/en
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- ↑ Marie de Régnier here affectionately reminds Proust of her former membership of the Académie Canaque, or Canaquadémie, a circle of young writers who frequented the salon of her father, the poet José-Maria de Heredia, between around 1893 and 1895. Marie de Heredia (who married Henri de Régnier in 1895) had founded this irreverent circle at the time of her father's election to the Académie française in 1894. She was its queen, Proust its permanent secretary, and the academy counted among its members Henri de Régnier, Pierre Louÿs, André Gide, Paul Valéry, Philippe Berthelot, Léon Blum, and others. See a letter from Gérard d'Houville (Marie de Régnier's pen name) to Paul Valéry on the occasion of his election to the Académie française, in which she evokes her "Canaque" past: "Chronique du Figaro. Letter to Paul Valéry" (Le Figaro, 23 June 1927, p. 1). Already in February 1914, when she wrote to Proust to thank him for sending her Swann, Marie de Régnier addressed him as follows: 'Thank you, my dear Canaque, for having written this astonishing book for my pleasure [...]' (CP 03432; Kolb, XVI, no. 208). In April 1920, Henri de Régnier concluded a letter to Proust: 'The Queen of the Canaques charges me to convey to you her affectionate memories [...]' (CP 04141; Kolb, XIX, no. 103). [CSz]