BERGOTTE AND DONCIERESwings!" "You know everything about the art of writing, M.
Arman," France began with careful irony; but Mme Arman broke
in with: "Hold your tongue, Albert, you're always saying some-
thing stupid." Clearly M. Arman shared several traits with that
other great yachtsman, the bluff, teasing, hen-pecked M. Verdurin.
Mme Arman had captured France in 1886 from a rival hostess,
Mme Aubernon de Nerville. For some years after their first
meeting in 1876 the two ladies had been great friends, and Mme
Aubernon, when. complimented on her charming companion,
would say complacently, "Yes, I invented her myself." But Mme
Arman decided to set up her own salon, and their rupture was the
late nineteenth-century equivalent of the quarrel between the
ageing Mme du Deffand and the young Julie de Lespinasse. Along
with France, she stole the younger Dumas, the dramatist,
Professor Brochard of the Sorbonne, the critic Jules Lemaitre and
the playwright Pailleron. The others continued to frequent both
salons, but France never returned to Mme Aubernon's. "Is it
true," she taxed him, "that you tell everybody you'll never come
to my house again because my dinners bore you?" "I may have
said so, madam," replied the embarrassed France, "but I never
meant it to be repeated."
For a few years Mme Arman was forced to tolerate the
occasional visits of the great man's wife. At first Mme France was
an exquisite blonde who was sometimes mistaken for France's
daughter; but she put on weight, her teeth became repulsively
irregular, and in her domineering presence France trembled and
stammered more than ever. Then he ceased to speak to her or to
notice her presence. One day in June 1892 she invaded his study,
where he was writing his fort:·lghtly article for the Universel, and
called him by a word which he considered 'gross, unseemly and
basely insulting'-some say the word was 'cocu'. A little later she
heard the street-door close, and ran to the window: France was
already receding along the Rue Chalgrin, carrying his inkwell,
pen and unfinished article on a tray; he still wore his slippers and
skull-cap, and the cord of his dressing-gown trailed on the pave-
ment behind him. On 2 August 1893 they were divorced. No
doubt the fault was not entirely on France's side; but Proust might
well write of Bergotte that he was said to have 'behaved cruelly
to his wife'.1 Henceforth France ate and spent his days at Mme
1 I, SS9