A photograph of Mme de Lauris discovered by Marcel Proust.

Marcel Proust (1871.1922)

Autographed letter signed to Georges de Lauris.

Four pages in-8°. No place [Cabourg, shortly before mid-August 1907]

Kolb, Volume VII, page 251

Proust finally discovers, in a photograph, the face of the late Madame de Lauris.

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"My dear Georges, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the sweet token of friendship you gave me by lending me this photograph. Please excuse my insistence; I needed to see it alone, and the emotion it stirred in me, which surpassed all my expectations, made it easy for me to deprive you of the chance to take it home with you. I recognized without difficulty that pure brow and exquisite face, where I so readily placed all the dreams I had formed about your mother."

And by drawing closer those eyes that watch over your well-being and protect it, those vigilant eyes, that expression in the lower part of his face so resolute in its unwavering gentleness, in its resignation to suffering and its complete devotion—the face of your father, whom I had such joy in seeing at Houlgate, I easily rediscovered the genealogy and, one after another, all the titles of your intellectual, moral, and physical nobility. I will not forget the kindness you showed me in allowing me to see your father and, even more so, the portrait of your mother. Thank you most tenderly, Marcel Proust.