Translations:CP 02924/22/en

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  1. Bertrand de Salignac-Fénelon, fallen at Mametz 17 December 1914 (see the military recruitment register, DR1 976, and his listing in the register "Died for France 14-18"), was for a long time reported as missing in action without it being known whether he was dead, seriously wounded, or a prisoner in Germany. In January 1915 Proust confided to Maria de Madrazo: "Bertrand de Fénelon has perhaps been killed. Nobody knows anything. The thought makes me mad with grief" (CP 02895; Kolb, XIV, no. 6). Through a letter of 17 February 1915, the Marquise de Montebello, Fénelon's sister, informed Proust that a witness said that he had seen him fall, mortally wounded. (CP 02908; Kolb, XIV, no. 19), but Proust continued to hope that he was only wounded. Antoine Bibesco, passing through Paris at the end of February or beginning of March 1915, informed Proust during a visit that appeared to take place on 27 February that Fénelon was now presumed dead (see Proust's letter to Louis de Robert of [beginning of March 1915]: CP 02921, Kolb, XIV, no. 32). But after several days of distress, Proust once again began to hope that Fénelon was only (seriously) wounded, considering that there was as yet no proof of his death (see his letter to Lauris [about 10 March 1915]: CP 02925; Kolb, XIV, no. 36). It was through the announcements of deaths which appeared in Le Figaro, 13 March 1915, p. 3, under the column "Le Monde et la Ville - Deuil" [Society and Town - Mourning] that he learned that Fénelon's death had now been confirmed. The present letter to Eugénie Lémel must then date from between Antoine Bibesco's visit of [27 February 1915?] which gave Fénelon up for dead, and the moment when Proust began to hope again at the start of March (before he was forced to admit on 13 March that no further hope was possible). [PK, PW, FL]