The Lemoine Affair
Read The Lemoine Affair Online
Authors: Marcel Proust
THE LEMOINE AFFAIR
WAS FIRST PUBLISHED IN
LE FIGARO
IN JANUARY, 1904 AND FEBRUARY-MARCH, 1908. THEY WERE SUBSEQUENTLY REVISED AND COLLECTED
IN THE BOOK
PASTICHES ET MÉLANGES
(GALLIMARD) IN 1918.
TRANSLATION © CHARLOTTE MANDELL 2008
MELVILLE HOUSE PUBLISHING
145 PLYMOUTH STREET
BROOKLYN, NY 11201
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PAPERBACK EDITION AS FOLLOWS:
PROUST, MARCEL, 1871-1922.
[PASTICHES ET MÉLANGES. ENGLISH]
THE LEMOINE AFFAIR / MARCEL PROUST; TRANSLATED BY CHARLOTTE MANDELL.
P. CM.
eISBN: 978-1-61219-233-8
I. MANDELL, CHARLOTTE. II. TITLE.
PQ2631.R63P313 2008
843.912–DC22
2008009204
v3.1
The reader may have forgotten, since ten years have now passed, that Lemoine, having
falsely claimed to have discovered the secret of making diamonds and having received,
because of this claim, more than a million francs from the President of De Beers,
Sir Julius Werner, who then brought action against him, was afterwards condemned on
July 6, 1909 to six years in prison. This legal affair, which, although insignificant,
enthralled public opinion at the time, was selected one evening by me, entirely by
chance, as the common theme for a few short pieces in which I would set out to imitate
the style of a certain number of writers. Even though offering even the slighest explanation
of one’s pastiches
risks diminishing their effect, nonetheless, lest one’s own legitimate self-esteem
be ruffled, I might remind the reader that it is the pastiched writer who is imagined
as speaking, faithful not only to his particular mind, but also to the language of
his time. In the piece by Saint-Simon for example, the words “good man,
bonhomme
” and “good woman” do not at all have the familiar, condescending slant they have
today. In his
Memoirs
, Saint-Simon throughout says “good man Chaulnes” (
le bonhomme Chaulnes
) for the Duc de Chaulnes, for whom he had infinite respect, and likewise for many
others.
—Marcel Proust
In one of the last months of the year 1907, at one of those “routs” of the Marquise
d’Espard thronged with the elite of Parisian aristocracy (the most elegant in Europe,
according to M. de Talleyrand, that Roger Bacon of the social organism, who was both
a bishop and Prince of Benevento), de Marsay and Rastignac, Comte Félix de Vandenesse,
the Ducs de Rhétoré and Grandlieu, Comte Adam Laginski, Maître Octave de Camps, and
Lord Dudley, formed a circle around Mme the Princesse de Cadignan, yet without arousing
the jealousy of the Marquise. Isn’t it in fact one of the greatnesses of the mistress
of the house—that Carmelite of worldly success—that she must sacrifice her coquetry,
her pride,
her very love, to the necessity of creating a salon in which her rivals will at times
be the most striking ornament? Isn’t she in that respect equivalent to a saint? Doesn’t
she deserve her share, so dearly acquired, in the social paradise? The Marquise—a
young lady from Blamont-Chauvry, related to the Navarreins, the Lenoncourts, and the
Chaulieus—held out to each newcomer the hand that Desplein, the greatest scholar of
our time (without excepting Claude Bernard) who had been the student of Lavater, declared
was the most profoundly mapped he had ever been given to examine. All of a sudden
the door opened to the illustrious novelist Daniel d’Arthez. A physicist of the moral
world who possessed the genius of both Lavoisier and Bichat—the creator of organic
chemistry—would alone be capable of isolating the elements that compose the special
sonority of the footsteps of superior men. Hearing those of d’Arthez resound you would
have trembled. Only a sublime genius or a great criminal could have walked thus. But
isn’t genius a kind of crime against the routine of the past that our time punishes
more severely than crime itself, since scholars die in hospitals bleaker than any
prison?
Athénaïs did not feel any joy at seeing return to her home the lover she hoped to
snatch away from her best friend. Thus she pressed the hand of the Princess while
preserving the impenetrable calm that women of high society possess at the very instant
they are burying a dagger in your heart.
“I am happy for you, my dear friend, that Monsieur d’Arthez has come,” she said to
Mme de Cadignan, “all
the more so since he will be completely surprised; he did not know you would be here.”
“He probably thought he would meet Monsieur de Rubempré here, whose talent he admires,”
Diane replied with an affectionate pout that hid the most biting raillery, since everyone
knew that Mme d’Espard did not forgive Lucien for having abandoned her.
“Oh! my angel,” the Marquise replied with a surprising ease, “we cannot stop people
like that, Lucien will undergo the fate of little d’Esgrignon,” she added, confounding
all those present by the infamy of these words, each one of which was an overwhelming
taunt for the Princess. (See
The Cabinet of Antiquities
.)
“You are speaking of Monsieur de Rubempré,” the Vicomtesse de Beauséant said, who
had not reappeared in society since the death of M. de Nueil and who, out of a habit
peculiar to people who have lived in the country for a long time, eagerly looked forward
to surprising Parisians with a piece of news she had just learned. “You know that
he is engaged to Clotilde de Grandlieu.”
Everyone made a sign to the Vicomtesse to be quiet, since this marriage was still
unknown to Mme de Sérizy, whom it would cast into despair.
“People say it’s true, but it might not be,” the Vicomtesse continued who, without
precisely understanding what sort of gaffe she had committed, regretted she had been
so demonstrative.
“What you say does not astonish me,” she added, “for I was surprised that Clotilde
was in love with someone so unattractive.”
“But on the contrary, no one is of your opinion, Claire,” the Princess cried out,
pointing out the Comtesse de Sérizy who was listening.
These words were all the more lost on the Vicomtesse since she was completely unaware
of the relationship between Mme de Sérizy and Lucien.
“Unattractive,” she tried to correct herself, “unattractive … at least for a
young
woman!”
“Picture it to yourself,” d’Arthez cried out before he had even given his coat to
Paddy, the famous tiger to the late Beaudenord (see
The Secrets of the Princesse de Cadignan
), who was standing in front of him with that immobility which was the specialty of
the domestic staffs of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, “yes, just picture it,” the great
man repeated with that enthusiasm of thinkers that seems ridiculous amidst the profound
dissimulation of high society.
“What is it? What should we picture to ourselves,” de Marsay asked ironically, giving
Félix de Vandenesse and Prince Galathione that ambiguous look, a veritable privilege
of those who had lived for a long time in intimacy with MADAME.
“Alvays goot!” the Baron de Nucingen gushed with the frightful vulgarity of parvenus
who think that with the help of the coarsest sayings they can put on airs and mimic
people like Maxime de Trailles or de Marsay; “unt you haf a goot hott; you are de
true brotector of de boor, in de Deppities.”
(The famous financier had special reasons to bear a grudge against d’Arthez who hadn’t
given him enough
support, when Esther’s former lover had sought in vain to have his wife, née Goriot,
admitted to the home of Diane de Maufrigneuse).
“Kvik, kvik, sire, mein happiness vill be complete if you find me vorthy of knowing
egzakly vat it is I should himagine?”
“Nothing,” d’Arthez replied appropriately, “I am speaking to the Marquise.”
That was said in such a perfidiously epigrammatic tone that Paul Morand, one of our
more impertinent embassy secretaries, murmured, “He is stronger than we!” The Baron,
sensing he had been trifled with, felt his blood run cold. Mme Firmiani sweated in
her slippers, masterpieces of Polish industry. D’Arthez pretended he didn’t notice
the comedy that had just played out, of a kind that only Parisian life can offer so
profoundly (which explains why the provinces have always provided France with so few
men of State) and without pausing at the beautiful Négrepelisse, turning toward Mme
de Sérizy with that terrifying sang-froid that can triumph over the greatest obstacles
(and for lofty souls are there any like those of the heart?):
“Madame, they have just discovered the secret of making diamonds.”
“Dis bizness is eine grreat dreasure,” the Baron exclaimed, dazzled.
“But I thought they always made them,” Léontine naively replied.
Mme de Cadignan, as a woman of taste, took care not to say a word, whereas bourgeois
ladies would have
launched into a conversation where they would have inanely flaunted their knowledge
of chemistry. But Mme de Sérizy had still not finished that phrase that revealed an
incredible ignorance, when Diane, lavishing her whole attention on the Countess, assumed
a sublime look. Only Raphael might have been capable of painting it. And indeed, if
he had succeeded, he would have given us a counterpart to his famous
Fornarina
, the most prominent of his canvases, the only one that places him above Andrea del
Sarto in the esteem of connoisseurs.
To understand the drama that is about to unfold, and to which the scene we have just
related may serve as prologue, a few words of explanation are necessary. At the end
of the year 1905, a fearful tension reigned in the relationships between France and
Germany. Either because Wilhelm II was actually planning to declare war on France,
or because he just wanted to give that impression in order to break our alliance with
England, the German ambassador received the order to announce to the French government
that he was going to present his letters of recall. The kings of finance speculated
then on a drop in the market, coming on news of an imminent mobilization. Considerable
sums were lost in the stock exchange. For one whole day they sold government bonds
that the banker Nucingen, secretly alerted by his friend the minister de Marsay of
the resignation of the chancellor Delcassé, which people in Paris didn’t hear about
until around four o’clock, bought back at a ludicrous price and has kept ever since.
Even Raoul Nathan believed in the war, although Florine’s lover, because du Tillet,
whose sister-in-law he had wanted to seduce (see
A Daughter of Eve
), had given him a bad steer on the stock market, advocated peace at any price in
his newspaper.
France was saved from a disastrous war then only by the intervention, of which for
a long time historians have been unaware, of the Maréchal de Montcornet, the strongest
man of his century after Napoleon. Even Napoleon was unable to execute his plan of
landing in England, the master idea of his reign. Napoleon, Montcornet—isn’t there
a kind of mysterious resemblance between these two names? I should be careful not
to say that they are linked to each other by some occult bond. Perhaps our era, after
having doubted all great things without trying to understand them, will be forced
to return to the pre-established harmony of Leibniz. What’s more, the man who was
then at the head of the most colossal diamond business in England was named Werner,
Julius Werner—Werner! Doesn’t this name seem to you strangely to evoke the Middle
Ages? Just hearing it, don’t you already see Dr. Faust, bending over his crucibles,
with or without Marguerite? Doesn’t it imply the idea of the philosopher’s stone?
Werner! Julius! Werner! Change two letters and you have Werther.
Werther
is by Goethe.
Julius Werner used Lemoine, one of those extraordinary men who, if they are guided
by a favorable fate, will be called Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, Ivan the Terrible,
Peter the Great, Charlemagne, Berthollet,
Spalanzani, Volta. Change the circumstances and they will end up like the Maréchal
d’Ancre, Balthazar Cleas, Pugachev, Le Tasse, the Comtesse de la Motte or Vautrin.
In France, the patent the government grants inventors has no value of its own. That
is where we should seek the cause that is paralyzing the whole vast industrial enterprise
in our country. Before the Revolution, the Séchards, giants of printing, still used
wooden presses in Angoulême, and the Cointet brothers hesitated to buy the second
printing patent. (See
Lost Illusions
.) In fact, few people understood the answer Lemoine made to the policemen who had
come to arrest him. “What? Would Europe abandon me?” the false inventor had exclaimed
with profound terror. The remark bandied about that evening in the salons of the government
minister Rastignac passed unnoticed.
“Has that man gone mad?” the Comte de Granville said, surprised.
The former clerk of the attorney Bordin was supposed to take the stand in this case
in the name of the public prosecutor’s department, having recently recovered, through
the marriage of his second daughter to the banker du Tillet, the favorable consideration
from the new government that his alliance with the Vandenesses had made him lose,
etc.