Chapter z5
SAINT-LOUPA
T 45 Rue de Courcelles Mme Proust continued to allow her
son to give 'grand dinners'; and one of the grandest of all
was that of 20 June 1901. The guests, among others, were
Anatole France and his daughter Suzanne (now no longer
dangerous, for she was about to become engaged to the Drey-
fusard Captain Mollin); the Comte and Comtesse d'E yragues
(nee Henriette de Montesquiou, Count Robert's cousin); Mme de
Noailles with her husband Mathieu and her sister, Proust's
favourite, Princesse Helene de Caraman-Chimay; the old
Comtesse de Brantes (the same whom Count Robert declared
'worth a whole Council of Trent'); Prince Constantin de
Brancovan, Leon Daudet, Abel Hermant; and three young
counts, Clement de Maugny, the Comte de Briey (whose mother
laughed like Mme Verdurin), and Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld,
of whom we shall hear more later. Mme de Noailles, whose first
volume of poems, Le Caur lnnombrable, had appeared with
sensational effect in May, was the guest of honour. Proust had
already arranged through Reynaldo Hahn, who had just con-
verted Sarah Bernhardt to these poems during a season of Phedre
at Brussels, for that great actress to give a reading from them on
30 May at Montesquiou's Pavillon des Muses; he had even
persuaded Mme Proust, of all people, to attend, and the Figaro
gossip-columnist to include her in 'among others recognised'.
So the table decoration on 20 June consisted of nosegays culled
from wild flowers mentioned in the poetess's verses, which Proust
had ordered, at a price far steeper than that of orchids, from
Lachaume and Vaillant-Rozier. Mme de Noailles was enraptured
by the compliment: possibly, Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld
maliciously surmised, she had hitherto known the flowers only
by their pretty names; and as she poured out the jewelled river
of her conversation, which left her no breath for eating, her
eagle's head was turned continually towards 'dear Marcel'. He,
too, ate little: it was his practice on these occasions, so that he