Proust's Duchess

"A ... look at the glittering world of turn-of-the-century Paris through the first in-depth study of the three women Proust used to create his supreme fictional character, the Duchesse de Guermantes. Genevi�eve Hal�evy Bizet Straus; Laure de Sade, Comtesse de Adh�eaume de Chevign�e; and �Elisabeth de Riquet de Caraman-Chimay, the Comtesse Greffuhle--these were the three superstars of fin-de-si�ecle Parisian high society who, as Caroline Weber says, 'transformed themselves, and were transformed by those around them, into living legends: paragons of elegance, nobility, and style.' All well but unhappily married, these women sought freedom and fulfillment by reinventing themselves, between the 1870s and 1890s, as icons. At their fabled salons, they inspired the creativity of several generations of writers, visual artists, composers, designers, and journalists ... Proust, as a twenty-year-old law student in 1892, would worship them from afar, and later meet them and create his celebrated composite character for The Remembrance of Things Past"--