Brouillon de lettre au prince Léon Radziwill

A friend of Léon Radziwill — whom he called Loche — since 1902, Proust sent him a letter of genuine pique on 28 February 1905 (“I no longer wish to see you”), while still hoping to be invited to his wedding to Claude de Gramont, planned for 27 June 1905. Loche did not invite him, and sent him instead, by way of consolation, a tie pin bearing his family arms. Offended, Proust prepared to return it, against his mother’s advice, and drafted this letter, which he submitted to her, describing it as “entirely satisfactory and toned down to the point of blandness” (Kolb, V, no. 136).

“Once again, forgive me for returning the pin. Think it over, and since, not knowing how to behave well yourself, you shrewdly perceive how others ought to behave, be assured that I could not have acted otherwise, and that deep in your heart […] you would think a little less of me had I acted otherwise. I looked for a way to do better, and more kindly toward you. I found none, and I believe that is because there was none.”

He sent him the issue of the Renaissance Latine of 15 June 1905 containing his preface “Sur la lecture” to his translation of Sésame et les Lys, returning to the notion of friendship: “You will see that this sort of thing does not matter very much, and that friendship is not something very serious,” comparing reading to a kind of friendship “addressed to someone dead, someone absent,” and therefore entirely “disinterested.”

Radziwill’s marriage would prove a failure, and over the years the friendship was renewed: alongside Reynaldo Hahn and Antoine Bibesco, he became one of Proust’s most faithful visitors.

Provenance: Mante-Proust collection (Sotheby’s sale, May 2018, lot 151).