THE CITIES OF THE PLAIN '43vow.' So Montesquiou began the movement which restored her
to her rightful position as one of the most interesting lesser poets
among the French romantics. Her lines
Je yeux aller maurir aux lieux OU je suis nee;
Le tombeau d' Albertine est pres de man bereeau •••may well have helped in suggesting to Proust the name of his
heroine and part of the subject of his novel. But the lecture was
also a move in a campaign to save Montesquiou himself from
neglect: 'the auditorium was a mosaic of celebrities,' he boasted.
Everyone expected the count to appear in his famous green dress-
coat, with one of his pink Liberty cravats. But to the astonishment
of all he wore a customaty suit of solemn black and looked,
Proust thought, like a solicitor's clerk. He discreetly mentioned
his surprise. "The feeling I had decided to arouse," Montesquiou
magnificently explained, "was a disappointed expectation of the
ridiculous."
In February, when his article was finally rejected, Proust
invented another plan for recovering favour with Montesquiou.
Whether or not the count last year had unsuccessfully tempted
Proust, Proust now to his extreme annoyance tempted him. At
the house of Comte Henri de Saussine, a dilettante composer and
musical critic,! he had met a nineteen-year-old pianist named
Leon Delafosse. The young virtuoso had given his first recital at
the age of seven, had won a first prize at the Conservatoire when
he was thirteen, and was now in search of a wealthy patron. Who
could be more suitable than Montesquiou? By way of preparing
the ground Delafosse set three of the Chauves-Sauris poems to
music2; on 10 February Proust notified Montesquiou of the fact;
and at last, on 15 March, the two tempters were permitted to bring
their homage to the Pavilion Montesquiou at Versailles. "Do let
me turn· the music while he sings," entreated Proust; but
Montesquiou smelt a rat. It so happened, he announced, that only
1 His salon at 14 Rue Saint~Guillaume is described in the sketch
'Eventail'in Les Plaisirs et les Jours, 87-91
- Similarly Morel asks the Narrator if he knows of 'any poet with a big
position among the nabs', takes a note of a suitable name, and writes that
he is a fanatical admirer of his works, has set one of his sonnets to music, and
would like him to arrange a performance at Comtesse-'s. But the out-
come is different, for 'the poet took offence and did not answer Ius letter',
(Cf. II, 265'-6).