Léontine Lippmann

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Madame Armand de Caillavet

Léontine Lippmann (14 June 1844 - 12 January 1910), better known by her married name of Madame Arman or Madame Arman de Caillavet, was the

muse of Anatole France and the hostess of a highly fashionable literary salon during the French Third Republic. Madame Verdurin in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past was modelled on Lippmann.[1]

Life

Born into a wealthy Jewish family as a banker's daughter, she married Albert Arman. Arman's mother's maiden name was Caillavet and so they called themselves Arman de Caillavet. They had one child, the playwright Gaston Arman de Caillavet. Neither of them was faithful to the other, though they never divorced.

Beautiful in her youth, with clear blue eyes, black hair, and a mocking mouth, she was intelligent, cultivated and spoke four languages. She often attended the salons of

Le Lys rouge
(1894).

Salon

Mme de Caillavet started her own salon

Alexandre Dumas, the Hellenist Brochard, Professor Pozzi, Leconte de Lisle, José-Maria de Heredia, Ernest Renan
and, of course, Anatole France.

Attendees

.

Leconte de Lisle cannot be translated in "Count de Lisle". Leconte is not a title but his family name.

References

  1. ^ Farrell, Adrienne (July 4, 1971). "Strolling, Novel in Hand, To Recapture the Paris of Proust". New York Times. Retrieved September 7, 2021.
  2. ^ "...a Jewish friend, Mme. Caillavet... gave [Anatole France] a salon in her house...and she probably had a good deal to do with his championship of Dreyfus, which contributed to bring about the retrial and pardon of 1899." Edmund Wilson, To the Finland Station, p. 57

Sources

  • Jeanne Maurice Pouquet, Le Salon de Madame Arman de Caillavet, 1926.
  • George Painter
    , Marcel Proust, London, Cratton and Windus, 1959