160 MARCEL PROUSTjunior, and one of the two brothers Proust had pursued because
they had their aunt's blue eyes and beaked nose. Mme de Chevigne
was not altogether pleased to acquire a niece several years older
than herself, but was thought to console herself by the thought of
the money it brought into the family.
Another salon in which Charles Haas, Breteuil, Turenne and
the rest of Comtesse Greffulhe's set were to be met-together
with Princesse Mathilde, the Grand-Duchess Wladimir and
Comte Robert de FitzJames-was the Duchesse de la Tremoille's.
"I don't say she's 'profound'," Swann tells Mme Verdurin, "but
she's intelligent, and her husband is really cultured." The
Duchesse looked like the White Queen in Alice, we are told by
an English observer, and wouldn't have a mirror in the house.
Mme de Chevigne stayed several month·s in every year at her
Chateau de Serrant in Anjou. Her scholarly husband, who was
the premier duke of France, senior even to the La Rochefoucaulds,
was tall, bearded, refined and dea£ Charlus, greeting the arriving
guests at the Princesse de Guermantes's, calls out: "Good evening,
Mme de la Tremoille."l
When Charlus also says: "Good evening, my dear Herminie,"
he is addressing the Duchesse Herminie de Rohan-Chabot, the
same who before her husband's succession was Princesse de Leon.
It was she who gave, in the 1880s, the celebrated 'ball of the
Princesse de Leon', which Swann mentions at Combray.2 Boni
de Castellane, still in his teens, had appeared there as the Marechal
de Saxe, in powdered wig, plumed hat and a purple cloak bordered
with sables borrowed from Mile Marsy. The company in her salon
was mixed: her daughter, Princesse Marie Murat, was once forced
to leave a message with the butler: "Tell Mother I couldn't get to
her through all those poets." Even Verlaine might have appeared
there, had not the absent-minded duchess invited him for the first
time several years after his death. She was exceedingly kind-
hearted, and when warned that one of her guests had been in
prison, replied only: "Oh, poor dear, no wonder he looks so sad 1"
Once she helped a peasant-woman in the train to change her
baby's napkins. "What is your name, kind lady?" asked the
grateful mother. "The Duchesse de Rohan." "Well, I'm the
Queen of Sheba." She worked for charities, presided on literary
juries, and published several volumes of verses. "She's managed
1 I, 260; II, 658 • 1,26,98, '74