First publication February 1904
To Odilon and Céleste Albaret:
"To my very dear Odilon and to his wife who I love just as much, this little book to which I would prefer a thousand times more to go with them to see Amiens cathedral and so many other beautiful things without us ever leaving each other. Marcel Proust."
To Léon Bailby:
"To Leon Bailby
His friend
Marcel Proust."
To Georges B... [?]:
"To Monsieur Georges B... [?]. This little guide to Amiens which might be useful to him if he ever goes there to gaze on the masterpiece of his XIIIth century colleagues. In friendly recollection, Marcel Proust."
[Incorrectly attributed to Georges Balzaine in Corr VI.]
To Maurice Barrès:
"To Monsieur Maurice Barrès
In apology for the slight reproach in the note on page 81.
His respectful admirer and his very grateful
Marcel Proust."
To Walter Berry:
"To Monsieur Walter Berry
Dear Sir, whilst waiting for the promised books to appear, I am sending
you this Bible of Amiens in memory of those beautiful words in which you
sadly portrayed me, within its scarlet and ruined cover, the Bible of
Reims.
Your ever grateful
Marcel Proust."
To Adolphe van Bever:
"To Monsieur Van Bever, as a token of friendship. Marcel Proust."
To Jacques-Émile Blanche:
"To Jacques Émile Blanche, his admirer and his grateful friend Marcel Proust."
To Dr Boissière (or Bize?):
"In homage from the translator, his grateful patient. Marcel Proust."
To Henry Bordeaux:
"To Monsieur Henry Bordeaux, in memory of a trip to Coudrée, affectionately yours, Marcel Proust."
To Émile Boutroux:
"To Émile Boutroux. As a token of respectful admiration and in memory of the friendship that he properly wanted to convey to my father. Marcel Proust."
To Princesse Rachel Bassaraba de Brancovan:
"To Madame Princesse de Brancovan. In respectful and admiring memory of those "musical moments" at Evian. Marcel Proust."
To Léon Brunschvicg:
"To Monsieur Léon Brunschvicg
his friend who admires him (and apologizes for having placed him in
contradiction with Ruskin - note on page 254).
Marcel Proust"
To Mme Arman de Caillavet:
"To Madame Arman de Caillavet. In respectful homage. Marcel Proust."
To Gaston Calmette:
"To Monsieur Gaston Calmette. As a token of deepest, most grateful and most deferent friendship. Marcel Proust."
To Alfred Capus:
"To Monsieur Alfred Capus. As a token of admiration - and in grateful memory of "happy minutes" in the train from Paris to Tours. Marcel Proust."
To princesse de Caraman Chimay:
"To princesse Alexandre de Caraman Chimay, the greatest admiration from one "Excluded", Marcel Proust."
To Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre:
"To Madame the Marquise de Clermont-Tonnerre. In respectful
and heartfelt memory of a Greek party and a Tanagra. Marcel Proust.
'Oh the unexpected charm of a pink and green jewel' (Baudelaire)."
To Jules Comte:
"To Monsieur Jules Comte. In respectful homage. Marcel Proust."
To Dr Cottet:
"To Doctor Cottet. His affectionate friend, Marcel Proust."
To Max Daireaux:
"To Max Daireaux. In friendly remembrance."
To Alphonse Darlu:
"To Monsieur Darlu
to my first admiration that no other since has ever equalled. As a token
of respectful gratitude and steadfast affection
Marcel Proust"
To Lucien Daudet:
"To Lucien Daudet with the tenderness and gratitude of his friend Marcel."
To Henri Dequis: (1917)
"To Monsieur Dequis
This Bible of Amiens which becomes more moving for us now when the "Bible
of Reims" has been mutilated
Marcel Proust"
To Abel Desjardins:
"To Abel Desjardins his friend Marcel Proust."
To Paul Desjardins:
"From your grateful admirer."
To Dr Maurice de Fleury:
"To Dr Maurice de Fleury. As a token of my very special and admiring gratitude. Marcel Proust."
To Anatole France:
"To Monsieur Anatole France. In homage of my infinite admiration, my respectful affection and my gratitude for a kindness impossible to forget. Marcel Proust."
To Robert Gangnat:
"To Robert Gangnat. His friend, Marcel Proust."
To Henri Gans:
"To Monsieur Henri Gans. As a token of grateful friendship. Marcel Proust."
To Georges Goyau:
"To Monsieur Georges Goyau. His affectionate and grateful admirer. Marcel Proust."
To Madame Goyau (née Lucie Félix-Faure):
"To Madame Georges Goyau née Lucie Félix Faure. As a token of very respectful and very admiring friendship. Marcel Proust."
To Fernand Gregh:
"To my dear Fernand, his friend who admires him. Marcel Proust."
To Gaston Griolet:
"To Monsieur Griolet. In admiring, respectful and grateful homage, Marcel Proust."
To Vicomte de Grouchy:
"To Monsieur Vicomte de Grouchy. As a token of respect. Marcel Proust."
To Reynaldo Hahn:
"Little Ruskin not being able to thank you himself for the
ravishing laments that you have caused the Muses to pour out, on the
anniversary of his death, he has asked me to express his gratitude to you
and his admiration for your brotherly genius. And it is I who thanks you,
oh my little Reynaldo, oh the greatest affection of my life; you know that
this little book was dedsicated to you, while I had my little Papa. But he
wanted to see it appear so much that, now, I prefer to take it back from
you and to offer it to him.
Come on my little Master, don't mockery your pony in his "new Anglomaniac
exercises" that are perilous enough. And above all very boring.
Marcelch."
To Daniel Halévy:
"To Daniel Halévy, his friend, Marcel Proust."
To Mrs Higginson:
"To Madame Higginson. In respectful remembrance and as an expression of my profound regret at no longer seeing her, this book that I would never have been able to bring out without her, her very grateful Marcel Proust."
To Edouard Hubert:
"To Monsieur Edouard Hubert, his friend. Marcel Proust."
To Charles Humphries:
"Guide to the gothic architecture and the cathedral of Amiens, for Charlie Humphreys esq. from his gratefully Marcel Proust."
[original written in English]
To Jean-Marie-Gustave-Régis Jalliffier:
"To Monsieur Jalliffier. As a token of profoundly respectful and admiring gratitude from his old pupil, Marcel Proust. November 1904."
To André de Joncières:
"To Monsieur André de Joncières. In friendly remembrance. Marcel Proust."
To Henri Joubert:
"To Monsieur Henri Joubert. As a too unequal exchange for your delightful and sad verses for which I will thank you more fully when I am a little less ill than I am now. Your grateful friend, Marcel Proust."
To Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld:
"To Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld, his grateful friend, Marcel Proust."
To Robert de La Sizeranne:
"To Monsieur de La Sizeranne. Homage from his admirer, Marcel Proust."
To Georges de Lauris:
"To Georges de Lauris as a token of profound friendship. Marcel Proust."
To Pierre Lavallée:
"To Pierre Lavallée. His friend Marcel."
To Suzette Lemaire:
"To Mademoiselle Suzette Lemaire, as a testimony of my most profound and most respectful friendship, her admirer, Marcel Proust."
To Federico de Madrazo:
"To my dear little Coco, me and you, Marcel."
To Émile Mâle:
To Monsieur Émile Mâle. As a token of profound admiration. Marcel Proust. (I have taken the liberty, Sir, of quoting from your book constantly, and on every page in chapter IV)."
To Doctor Alfred Martin:
"To Doctor Alfred Martin. In grateful homage. Marcel Proust."
To Roger Marx:
"To Monsieur Roger Marx. In testimony of his great literary esteem. Marcel Proust."
To Comte Clément de Maugny:
"To Clément de Maugny. In homage of my grateful, unalterable and profound tenderness. Marcel Proust."
To Doctor Pierre Merklen:
"To Monsieur Doctor Merklen. As a token of most respectful and deepest gratitude. Marcel Proust."
To Comte Robert de Montesquiou:
"To Comte Robert de Montesquiou. As a token of an admiration and a friendship already long standing and constantly renewed. Marcel Proust."
To Louisa de Mornand:
[From Selected Letters 2, 1904-1909.]
"Dedication not to be left lying around.
To Louisa Mornand. Ringed by the blaze of her adorer's eyes.
Mornand is certainly not the present participle of the verb morner,
for this archaic verb had a meaning which I don't remember exactly but
which was extremely improper. And God knows... Alas! - For those who have
had no success with you - that is to say everyone - other women cease to
be attractive. Whence this couplet:
He who Louisa cannot win,
Must be content with Onan's sin.
I love you and admire you with all my heart.
Marcel."
To Eugène Mutiaux:
"To Eugène Mutiaux, as a token of profound affection, Marcel Proust."
To Albert Nahmias:
"To my dear collaborator and great friend a token of my deep affection Marcel Proust"
To Mme de Noailles:
"(The book is unreadable for a "pagan" wife and an
anticlerical husband. But perhaps Anne-Jules (see Ruskin's introduction)
if he is still a believer can find in it a little history of the
Scriptures, some history of France and of archaeology. In any case I've
had him sent a copy which I addressed to Dr Cottet by mistake).
To Madame Comtesse Mathieu de Noailles. "Who knows to what final success,
nature, part of the primitive sea-anemone, will not achieve? It is certain
that the apparition on earth of a woman who unites with the genius of
Victor Hugo and Montaigne the beauty of Cleopatra and the heart of St
Francis of Assissi, is something difficult for us to imagine. But if such
a creature has not existed up until now, can we reasonable conclude that
such a one has never existed?" (Ernest Renan, Discours et conférences).
With the homage of her respectful friend who admires her more than anyone
in the world. Marcel Proust."
To [Joseph?] Paul-Boncour:
"To Paul Boncour. His friend, Marcel Proust."
To Mme de Pierrebourg:
"To Madame de Pierrebourg. As a token of respectful gratitude. Marcel Proust."
To Marcel Plantevignes:
"To my very dear Marcel Plantevignes
On the day before leaving him and seeing come to an end this summer which
will remain for me the one in which I discovered the charm of an ardent
and profound soul, always vibrant and quickened by the four winds of the
mind, I form for the perfect and fecund maturation of his mind still in
flower, for the fulfilment and the sweetness of beautiful fruits that I
shall not see, an ardent and pious wish, and I repeat to myself with
melancholy these lines from Sully Prudhomme:
Here on earth all the lilacs wither,
All songs of the birds are short lived,
I dream of creatures that will remain
Always!
Here on earth all men weep
For their friendships or their loves,
I dream of friends who will remain
Always!
These lines from Verlaine:
Oh, when will the roses of September bloom again!
These lines from d'Aubigné:
An autumn rose is more exquisite than any other...
And these lines from Baudelaire, that so often in the evening, at the age of fifteen, when like my dear Marcel I still had delightful parents, a mother who was intelligent and good like his mother, a father who was intelligent and good like his father, and when I myself too was a young Marcel, less wise and less strong and less intelligent and less good than the one into whose beloved hands I place this book and other things more precious, I would often say at the setting of the sun with a feeling less painful and less utterly autumnal than today:
But everything today is painful for me
And nothing, neither the sun, nor your words, nor the hearth,
Is worth to me the sun beaming on the sea
The task is short, the tomb awaits, it is voracious
Ah, leave me...........
To taste with regret the white and torrid summer
Of autumn's end the sweet yellow ray.
May he at least, if he travels through Amiens, this book in his hand, one frosted day of Autumn or Winter, as Ruskin advises, remember that this guide was given to him one sad September evening at Cabourg, when the cinematographic show was about to begin and may he find on visiting the sacred old stones of the Venice of the North in the company of this melancholy pilgrim, a little of the sweetness I felt beside him the day before seeing approach us in mournful and magical dress Saint-Omer, described on a play-bill, Ruskinian perhaps but without knowing it, as the Venice of the North."
To Comte Guiseppe Primoli:
"To Comte Primoli. As a token of respectful and grateful sympathy. Marcel Proust."
To Robert Proust:
"I hope to be welcomed tenderly by you, my dear brother, now that my father is no longer with us (Antigone). Your Marcel."
To Henri de Régnier:
"[...] his grateful admirer [...]"
To Joseph Reinach:
"To Monsieur Joseph Reinach, In memory of a mysterious - and possibly august - encounter that we had one afternoon of sunshine and mist amongst the glowing and crepuscular Rembrandts. His devoted Marcel Proust."
To Henri Rochat:
"A voyage in the mind to Amiens with Henri Rochat, a great connoisseur of Bibles, to console me for not being able to go with him for real to Nîmes. 1919 [Marcel] Proust."
To Édouard Rod:
"To Monsieur Edouard Rod. As a token of respectful and profound admiration. Marcel Proust."
To M. Rouillard de Kerivily:
"To Monsieur Rouillard de Kerivily. In respectful homage from the translator who would be very happy if this little work might one day have the good fortune to guide through Amiens cathedral the one who guided me so very brilliantly through the labyrinths of an edifice of a quite different style and which would no doubt be surprised to be placed in front of the former, the Bourse! Marcel Proust."
To Bertrand de Salignac-Fénelon:
"To my dear Bertrand. With all my deepest and most grateful
friendship. Marcel Proust.
March 1904"
To Edmond Sée:
"To Edmond Sée. His friend, Marcel Proust."
To Stany (Stanislas Oppenheim):
"To my dear Stany. His Marcel."
To Mme Straus:
"To Madame Straus. Her respectful and grateful admirer. As a token of his most lively and profound attachment. Marcel Proust."
To Mlle Marguerite Thomson [or Kiki Bartholini?]:
"I was going to write to Coco. But Reynaldo Hahn told me that he has left for Versailles... So if his response comes to you a little late, don't blame your respectful and profound admirer. Marcel Proust."
To Vicomte Eugène-Melchior de Vogüé:
"To Monsieur the Vicomte E.M. de Vogüé. In respectful and grateful homage. Marcel Proust."
To Adèle Weil:
"To my dear little Adèle with an expression of tenderness."
To unknown recipient:
"To an Angel from Chartres, to a champion from Reims, this 'Bible of Amiens'. As a memento from the translator, Marcel Proust. PS. Et Incarnatus est. That the most modern (in the sense of very, extremely) and the most powerfully [illegible] Spirit may be incarnate in this piece of architecture or rather [...]"
To unknown recipient:
"To Monsieur [...] Affectionate and grateful homage. Marcel Proust." [Name of recipient erased]
Other known dedicatees: Mme Daudet, Léon Daudet, Louis de Robert, Robert Dreyfus, Gabriel Mourey, Willy, Francis de Miomandre, Abbé Vignot, Abbé Hébert, Mme de Brantes, Abel Hermant, Henri Bergson, Baronne James de Rothschild, Comte Étienne de Beaumont, M. Monroy, Maxime Dethomas(?), Henry Gauthier-Villars. Henry Bernstein, Comtesse de Martel-Janville(?).
Created 15.11.22
Updated 01.04.24