Salons
Yesterday evening M. Marcel Proust gave a very select but highly elegant tea-party, to which only a score of people had been invited.
Those recognized: Comtesse Aimery de la Rochefoucauld, Duc and Duchesse de Guiche, Comtesse d'Haussonville, Duchesse de Gramont, Comte and Comtesse de Ludre, Mme Madeleine Lemaire, Marquis and Marquise d'Albufera, Princesse de Chimay, Comte and Comtesse Adhéaume de Chevigné, etc.
After the tea-party, which was not followed by a reception, M. Marcel Proust's guests had the pleasure of hearing M. Reynaldo Hahn who sang some of his exquisite melodies at the piano.
Article appeared in Le Figaro, 7 March 1905.
This report may have been written
by Marcel Proust. According to George Painter: "When the
guests were gone and the candles out [...] Proust wrote the
report of his party for the next day's Figaro, choking
in a fit of asthma [...] Proust returned from the Figaro
office after midnight ..." This is not mentioned in any of
the other biographies I have seen. Does it really matter?