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<ref name="n10">Comte and comtesse Henri Greffulhe, parents of the duchesse de Guiche, née Elaine Greffulhe, had indeed many years to live: the comte died in 1932; and the comtesse, née Elisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, in 1952. [PK] </ref>
<ref name="n10">Comte and comtesse Henri Greffulhe, parents of the duchesse de Guiche, née Elaine Greffulhe, had indeed many years to live: the comte died in 1932; and the comtesse, née Elisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, in 1952. [PK] </ref>


<ref name="n11"> Proust is alluding here to a misunderstanding concerning the debit balance of his liquidation account relating to the sale of shares in Mexico Tranways bought at term. Lionel Hauser, after his examination of Proust's account statements, had just furnished him with detailed explanations to dissuade him from filing a claim, in his letters dating from 26 August 1916 (CP 03184 and CP 03185; Kolb, XV, no. 120 and no. 121) and 29 August 1916 (CP 03187; Kolb, XV, no. 123). On the investments with Mexican Tramways see also CP 02812 (Kolb, XIII, no. 161), and Rubén Gallo, Proust's Latin Americans, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, p. 73-89. [CSz, NM] </ref>
<ref name="n11"> Proust is alluding here to a misunderstanding concerning the debit balance of his liquidation account relating to the sale of stocks in Mexico Tranways bought at term. Lionel Hauser, after his examination of Proust's account statements, had just furnished him with detailed explanations to dissuade him from filing a claim, in his letters dating from 26 August 1916 (CP 03184 and CP 03185; Kolb, XV, no. 120 and no. 121) and 29 August 1916 (CP 03187; Kolb, XV, no. 123). On the investments with Mexican Tramways see also CP 02812 (Kolb, XIII, no. 161), and Rubén Gallo, Proust's Latin Americans, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, p. 73-89. [CSz, NM] </ref>


<ref name="n12"> Translation notes: </ref>  
<ref name="n12"> Translation notes: </ref>  

Latest revision as of 07:31, 16 January 2022


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Marcel Proust to Lionel Hauser Tuesday evening[29 August 1916]

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

Tuesday evening[1]

My dear Lionel

I have just this moment received your letter but as I am having a lot of pain in my eyes I shall provisionally limit myself to a very incomplete reply. If the three young men (not all that young, rather I myself, alas, am very old - and in any case considerably their elder) are the ones I think they are, I won’t hide from you that for a long time, long before my financial losses, I had advised one of them to place his money with you[2]. But here’s the difficulty, which doesn’t make the plan impossible but very awkward. You know that Israel is often at the source of the fortunes and that that is most often forgotten about. But if d’Albufera is due to inherit a considerable fortune from his parents[3] [4] the most evident of what he currently has comes from his wife, the daughter of Princesse d’Essling[5], that is to say the grand-daughter of Mme Furtado Heine[6]. But that fortune is deposited with the Heine Bank and I don’t even know if the testamentary arrangements won’t make it very difficult to withdraw; I vaguely remember that a similar obstacle came up when d’Albufera wanted to deposit some money in Brussels with M. Lambert.

On first appearances Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld seems to have no connection with d’Albufera. But his wealth (currently at least) came from his marriage with the daughter of the Princesse of Monaco, herself the daughter of the other Heines[7], not Furtado but relations[8] and extremely rich, but bankers. Finally, Guiche owes his wealth to the fact that his mother, the Duchesse de Gramont, was born a Rothschild (same bank)[9]. It is true that one day his wife Mlle Greffulhe will be worth more than him, but at present the parents of the said lady are in perfect health[10]. These explanations which are of little interest to you are to demonstrate that it is not through any lack of desire for something I have thought about a great deal (and I must stress in the interests of the depositors rather than yours) (the word depositors is not quite correct but you understand what I mean) even if I have done nothing about it yet. But the fact that I haven’t seen any of these people for so many years is also a consideration. But now I know that the idea is not disagreeable to you, as soon as I am able to receive anybody I shall convene the ones who haven’t been mobilized and if I can convince them I believe I will be doing them a very great service. But however agreeable it might be for me to do them a very great service, it doesn’t quite seem like a disinterested way of showing you my gratitude. So, getting back to my little flock, it would be a great satisfaction to me if you raised your derisory brokerage fee to a satisfactory sum. On the day I succeed in establishing with you two or three multimillionaires imploring you for advice, that is the day I will consent to you once again charging me at the current going rate. But until then I beg you to be mindful of my entreaty and believe in my affectionate gratitude.

Marcel Proust

For the Crédit Industriel I think that you told me some time ago that I should have been in credit to the sum of approximately 2,000 francs. As I haven’t requested any money (cheques) from them for eight months, seeing that those 2,000 francs have evaporated (I’m not talking about the fall of the Mexico which was before then) I had assumed that they had calculated the interests after the reimbursement. Since that never happened I have no claim to make against them[11].

[12] [13]

Notes

  1. ↑ Proust is replying here to a letter from Lionel Hauser dated 29 August 1916 that he had received "just this moment" (CP 03187; Kolb,XV, no. 123). He is sending his reply that same evening, since 29 August fell on a Tuesday in 1916, which is confirmed by Lionel Hauser's response dated 1 September 1916: "I have received your letter of Tuesday evening" (CP 03190; Kolb, XV, no. 126). [PK, CSz]
  2. ↑ Proust, concerned about the "derisory and ridiculously Lilliputian" sum of the commission charged by Hauser (CP 03186; Kolb, XV, no. 122), Hauser had replied to him that he would not change his fees "according to the whims of the client or his social standing" but that he would appreciate it if Proust would recommend his services to certain of his friends: "Since from our recent written exchanges it appears that among your closest friends you count people who are weighed down with a certain quantity of millions, you could perhaps reveal my existence to them, and inform them that it would be in their interest to make use of my agency to invest their funds." (CP 03187; Kolb, XV, no. 123). [CSz]
  3. ↑ Louis Suchet, marquis d'Albufera (1877-1953) was the eldest son of Raoul Suchet, third duc d'Albufera (1845-1925), and the duchesse, née Zénaïde de Cambacérès (1857-1932). [PK, CSz]
  4. ↑ In the left hand margin written in pencil in a different handwriting (Hauser's, presumably) is written the word "late". It is impossible to know if this comment (by the recipient?) is contemporary with the receipt of this letter or a later addition. [FL]
  5. ↑ In 1904 Louis d'Albufera had married Anne (Anna) Masséna d'Essling et de Rivoli (1884-1967), daughter of Victor Masséna prince d'Essling and duc de Rivoli (1836-1910) and his wife, Marguerite, known as Paule, Furtado-Heine (1847-1903): see note 6 below. [PK, CSz]
  6. ↑ Cécile Furtado, known as Furtado-Heine (1821-1896), daughter of the Parisian banker Elie Furtado and, through her mother Rose Fould, grand-daughter of the Beers banker Léon Fould, had married Beer Karl (Charles) Heine, a wealthy Frankfurt banker (1810-1865). Childless widow and the head of a considerable fortune, she adopted, in 1881, a young woman "born of unknown parents", Marguerite, known as Paule (1847-1903), who may have been the natural daughter of her brother Paul Furtado-Fould and his mistress (see the Wikipedia entry for him). Paule, who had married Michel Ney, duc d'Elchingen (1835-1881) in 1866, widowed in 1881, made a second marriage to Victor Masséna, duc de Rivoli et prince d'Esslingen in 1882, with whom she had three children. The eldest, Anne (Anna) Masséna d'Esslingen, husband of Louis d'Albufera, owed in fact part of her fortune to the families of Furtado-Fould and Heine through her mother (died 1903); but Proust seems to forget that her father, Victor Masséna (died 1910), was himself extremely wealthy, descending from a maréchal and prince under the Empire who was known for his considerable fortune which he had amassed during the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. [FL]
  7. ↑ In 1905 Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld had married Odile Chapelle de Jumilhac du Plessis de Richelieu (1879-1974), daughter of Armand Chapelle de Jumilhac du Plessis de Richelieu, duc de Richelieu (1847-1880) and the duchesse, née Alice Heine (1857-1925), who made a second marriage, in 1889, to Albert I, prince of Monaco. She was the daughter of Michel Heine (1819-1904), French banker and his wife, née Amélie Miltenberger (1832-1915). [PK, CSz]
  8. ↑ Charles Heine and Michel Heine were first cousins, sons respectively of Isaac Heine, German merchant based in Bordeaux, and of his brother Salomon, Hamburg banker. (A third brother, Samson, also a merchant, was father of the writer Heinrich Heine, who was therefore himself first cousin of Charles and Michel Heine.) At one time associated with the Fould Bank, Michel Heine had founded, in about 1876, along with his brother Armand the bank of MM. A. et M. Heine, renamed the Bank of Heine and Co. in 1883. See the genealogy of the Heine family and the inventory of the Fould Bank and the Heine Bank in the National Archives. [CSz]
  9. ↑ The duc de Guiche was the son of Agénor, duc de Gramont (1851-1925), and his second wife Margaretha (Marguerite) Alexandrine de Rothschild (1855-1905), who was one of the daughters of baron Mayer Carl von Rothschild (1820-1886), one of the directors of the bank of M A von Rothschild & Söhne in Frankfurt (see his biography). See the genealogy of the Rothschild family. [CSz]
  10. ↑ Comte and comtesse Henri Greffulhe, parents of the duchesse de Guiche, née Elaine Greffulhe, had indeed many years to live: the comte died in 1932; and the comtesse, née Elisabeth de Caraman-Chimay, in 1952. [PK]
  11. ↑ Proust is alluding here to a misunderstanding concerning the debit balance of his liquidation account relating to the sale of stocks in Mexico Tranways bought at term. Lionel Hauser, after his examination of Proust's account statements, had just furnished him with detailed explanations to dissuade him from filing a claim, in his letters dating from 26 August 1916 (CP 03184 and CP 03185; Kolb, XV, no. 120 and no. 121) and 29 August 1916 (CP 03187; Kolb, XV, no. 123). On the investments with Mexican Tramways see also CP 02812 (Kolb, XIII, no. 161), and Rubén Gallo, Proust's Latin Americans, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014, p. 73-89. [CSz, NM]
  12. ↑ Translation notes:
  13. ↑ Contributors: Yorktaylors.
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