The moved wishes of Marcel PROUST tinged with the memory of Paul Hervieu.

Marcel Proust (1871.1922)

Autograph letter signed to Baroness Aimery Harty of Pierrebourg.

Three pages in-8°. 102 bd Haussmann. December 29 [1915]

Kolb, Volume XIV, pages 325-326.

“An autumn rose is more exquisite than another” This one was still summer. Alas, a human rose over which many tears cry.

Marcel Proust sends his wishes tinged with the memory of the death of Paul Hervieu, the deceased lover of his correspondent.

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“Madame, In these days of renewal when wounds hurt more I think of you whom this ending year has so cruelly bruised. I did not know Madam your Mother, nor your son. But I knew the incomparable friend who had received this unique privilege, as abnormal in the kingdom of spirits as in the plant world, having borne so many bitter and sweet and nourishing fruits, to keep the grace, the freshness, the petals roses of a flower. So much so that we can say despite the orchards full of its fruiting body having reached its fullest maturity, that it is still in flower, that one mysterious night of war, and silently like a flower, it was mowed down. “An autumn rose is more exquisite than another” [verse from Agrippa d’Aubigné] . This one was still summer. Alas, a human rose over which many tears cry. Tell Madam your daughter and Georges that I think of them infinitely and please accept Madam all my respects. Marcel Proust. »

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Mother-in-law of Georges de Lauris, one of Marcel Proust's comrades whom he met in 1903 and who was a valued advisor for the writing of what would become Contre Sainte-Beuve, Marguerite de Pierrebourg (1856-1943) was initially a painter before turning to writing. Her first novel was distinguished by the French Academy and from 1912 she became president of the Prize for the Happy Life (future Fémina Prize), thus occupying an important place in Parisian literary life. Marcel Proust frequented her salon and consulted her on literary questions. She was notably one of the witnesses to the difficult gestation of the first volume of In Search of Lost Time.