THE CITIES OF THE PLAINnewly elected members which was a feature of the senior institu-
tion was replaced by a silent series of artistic and horrible
grimaces; and it was unanimously agreed that the inaugural
address of Paul Valery was the finest ever seen in the Cannibal
Academy. The members were bound by a pact of mutual assis-
tance-'I trust I may never have reason to repent that I never
joined,' remarked Robert de Billy many years later. The Academy
soon dissolved; but Proust continued ever after to address Marie
as 'My Queen'.
In November 1893 Proust devised a means of continuing his
career in the Revue Blanche, of opening a new field in his writing,
and of regaining the favour of the ever-ruffled Montesquiou. He
would write a series of critical essays, and inaugurate it with an
article entitled, with mingled paradox, irony and adulation, La
Simplicite de M. de Montesquiou. Count Robert thought the plan
excellent. No one had ever written a full-dress article on him
before, and yes, Marcel was perfectly right: people considered
his poetry obscure and excessively refined, but it was, in fact,
divinely simple. Besides, if published in time, the article would
serve as advance publicity for his new volume, Le Chef des Odeurs
Suaves, due to appear in January 1894. Proust self-sacrificingly
begged Natanson to substitute his essay for the six sketches in
the December Revue Blanche; but the reluctant editor first refused,
then consented, and then refused again. Now there would be no
room even in the January number: Montesquiou and his simplicity
would have to wait till February. As a last resort Proust
approached Mme Straus's friend Louis Ganderax, who was about
to revive the conservative Revue de Paris as a rival to the still
more conservative Revue des Deux Mondes; but Ganderax would
not bite, and now even the February Revue Blanche was fulL La
Simplicittf de M. de Montesquiou did not appear till sixty years
later, in Contre Sainte-Beuve.I Its theme, which perhaps explains
the equal but opposite intransigences of Natanson and Ganderax,
is that of Proust's first flattering letter to the count: Montesquiou,
he maintains, is not an 1890S decadent but a seventeenth-century
classic, and resembles Corneille (which is absurd) just as
Baudelaire resembles Racine (which is very true).
With all his efforts Proust had succeeded only in barring
against himself the doors of the Revue Blanche-in which he
1 Contre Sainte~Beuve, 430-5.