2.34 MARCEL PROUST
which was composed mainly of Sorbonne professors with a large
proportion of Protestants, Maurras founded the Ligue de la Patrie
F ran~aise,1 which soon had fifteen thousand members, and
survived long enough to become the foundation of fascism in
France. Several of the most prominent, such as Jules Lemaltre,
the historian Vandal, Barres, F orain, the poet Heredia and the
Comtesse de Martel (the novelist Gyp) had been acquaintances
of Proust in happier days. Their unofficial headquarters was the
salon of the wealthy Comtesse de Loynes, on which the nationalist
salon of Mme Swann at the time of the Affair is modelled. Mme
de Loynes resembled Odette in that she had been a Second
Empire cocotte, was at home (a most daring innovation) every
day of the week at tea-time, and was given to benevolent but
enigmatic silence while her guests talked. Jules Lemaltre, her
lover, was the Bergotte of her salon: "poor Lemaltre, for him
she'll never seem a day over fifty," someone said; and after her
death in '908 Adrien Hebrard, the editor of Le Temps, unfeelingly
remarked: "Never mind, they'll meet again in a better demi-
monde." But the salon of Mme de Loynes was political and
literary, rather than aristocratic; and Proust is thinking of Mme
Hayman'S drawing-room six years before when he makes the
Princesse d'Epinay, opening Odette's door in search of a sub-
scription for the 'Patrie F ran~aise', find a fairy palace in which
Louis de Turenne and the Marquis du Lau are cup-bearers
serving orangeade and iced cakes.^2
In December ,898 Proust was touched to receive a Christmas
card from Marie Nordlinger, who had returned to England early
in the summer before. He had ceased, like the Narrator, to believe
in anniversaries; but now the memory of Christmasses past, 'of
candle-light, of snowfalls, melancholy obstacles to some longed-
for visitor, the scent of mandarin oranges absorbing the warmth
of the room, the gaiety of frosts and fires, the perfumes of tea and. mimosa', returned with a rush of emotion. 'All these things re-
appear, coated with the delicious honey of our inner being, which
we have unconsciously deposited on them during years in which we
were under the spell of selfish ends; and now, suddenly, it makes
our hearts beat.' And in gratitude he told Marie she was 'fresh and
1 Brichot joined it, much to Mme Verdurin's annoyance, taking the
opposite line from his original Brochard, who was a Dreyfusist (II, \83).
, n, 741