THE EARLY YEARS OF JEAN SANTEUIL 209
quarrel are obscure, for we are not compelled to believe the
Count's explanation that Lorrain was hurt by his polite refusal
to accept the dedication of a new book. Montesquiou soon found
he was attacked by Lorrain on every opportunity both in print
and in private. One such occasion was the publication in June
1896 of Les Hortensias hleus, which earned for Montesquiou from
Leon Daudet the nickname of 'Hortensiou' (this was almost more
damaging than F orain's 'Grotesquiou'). Proust, unfortunately,
was mentioned with approbation in the preface, and Lorrain,
leaping to conclusions as to the intimacy of their relationship, had
referred to him in his review of 1 July as 'one of those pretty
little society boys who've managed to get themselves pregnant
with literature'. In Le Journalfor 3 February 1897 appeared a still
more serious libel. Lorrain wrote of the 'elegiac mawkishness' of
Les Plaisirs et les Jours, 'tllOse elegant, subtle little nothings,
thwarted affections, vicarious flirtations, all in a precious and
pretentious prose, with Mme Lemaire's flowers strewn by way of
symbols all over the margins. All the same, M. Marcel Proust has
had his preface from M. Anatole France, who wouldn't have done
as much for Marcel Schwob, or Pierre Louys, or Maurice Barres;
but'-and here came the sting in the tail-'such is the way the
world wags, and you may be sure that for his next volume M.
Proust will extract a preface from the intransigent Alphonse
Daudet himself, who won't be able to refuse this service either
to Mme Lemaire or to his son Lucien.' Only the most inattentive
of Le Journal's hundreds of thousands of readers could fail to
understand that this was a public accusation of homosexuality,
involving both Proust and Lucien Daudet. There was only one
way to answer it, and to stop further attacks; and Proust sprang
with alacrity to the defence of his friend's honour and his own.
Only three days later, on the 6th, he fought a duel with his
enemy.
It was a cold, rainy afternoon at the Tour de Villebon in the
Bois de Meudon, a traditional duelling-ground for quarrelling
Parisians. Lorrain's seconds were Paul Adam, the novelist, who
was later on Proust's side in the Dreyfus Affair, and Octave
Uzanne, the art-critic, who arrived half an hour late with a grey,
drawn face, still under the influence of morphine. Proust's own
seconds were a positive social triumph: he had succeeded in
persuading Jean Beraud, the painter at MmeLemaire's, not only