THE DREYFUS CASEbeforehand in the chalet of her brother, Prince Constantin de
Brancovan; but more often he would come much later. On fine
evenings coffee was served on the terrace at the far end of the
park, where the long road to Evian could be seen white in the
moonlight. About midnight a carriage-Proust called it 'my
Brancoach'-would be heard approaching; 'I'll bet anything
that's Marcel Proustl" cried the Princesse; and on those evenings
the session would be prolonged until three in the morning.
At Coudree, with its giant plane-trees and box-alleys where
Alfieri had wandered with the Countess of Albany a hundred
years before, was Mme Bartholoni, a god-daughter of Chateau-
briand. "I used to make him go down on all fours to play with
me under the table, and I could hear his old knees cracking, but
it never occurred to me to feel sorry." She had been a Second
Empire beauty, and was still erect and majestic. In memory of
her youth she dyed her hair bright red; when her daughters
protested, she shouted: "not another word, or I'll dye it green!"
Her youngest daughter, Kiki, was a tall, golden-haired, twenty-
seven-year old Amazon-'like a heroine in a Scott novel', said
the romantic young barrister Henry Bordeaux, who ten years
earlier had been accustomed to rush to the schoolroom window
with his comrades to see her pass when she rode into Thonon on
horseback. All the young men on the lake were either in love with
her or, like Proust, pretended to be. In return she took a sisterly
interest in Proust's clothing: 'I can't think why you don't dress
better, with a tailor like Eppler in the house," she declared.l
Bordeaux, who was a member of the bar at Thonon and already
a well-known novelist, met Proust one day at Coudree and was
delighted to find in him a fellow-enthusiast for Mlle Kiki, Dreyfus
and the works of Chateaubriand. He lingered spellbound by
Proust's carriage, missing boat after boat home, and remembered
ever afterwards the hurt look in Proust's eyes when at last he
broke away to catch the last steamer of the day.
Other social possibilities on the lake included the Adolphe de
Rothschilds at Pregny near Geneva and the Haussonvilles at
Coppet. But at Thonon there were two special friends of Proust,
both Dreyfusards afflicted with anti-Dreyfusard fathers, Pierre
1 The tailor Eppler had his shop on the ground floor of the Proust's home
at 9 Boulevard Malesherbes, and in this, though perhaps in nothing else,
helped to suggest Jupien.