The Faure family had two daughters 👧🏻👧🏻, and the Proust family had two sons 👦🏻👦🏻.

The Faure family had two daughters 👧🏻👧🏻, whilst the Proust family had two sons 👦🏻👦🏻. Dr Adrien Proust was a member of a health committee set up by the MP Félix Faure in his constituency of Le Havre. They socialised and the families visited each other in Paris 🥂. In the gardens of the Champs-Élysées 🌳🌳 and around Parc Monceau, their children spent time together and played, under the watchful eye of an English nanny.

(Lucie and) Antoinette Faure are a bit like Gilberte Swann. 👩🏻‍🦰💔

Like many young girls (in their prime) 🌺, Antoinette received a copy of “Confessions” – which translates as “Confidences” in French. It is a parlour game in which she asks people around her – adults and children alike – to fill in 📝 a short questionnaire comprising around thirty eclectic questions: ‘My favourite colour’, ‘Faults I’m most forgiving of’, ‘My current state of mind’, ‘My favourite painters’, ‘How I’d like to die’, ‘My dream of happiness’, etc.

Of course, people pretend to answer with complete transparency, when in reality it’s all about the young lads showing off their wit and the young ladies proving they’re well-bred. 👀

From Saturday 3 to Monday 5 September 1887 🗓️, a major maritime exhibition took place in Le Havre 🚢. And the brochure for Antoinette Faure’s “Confessions” was duly completed by several of her friends, including Marcel Proust, who was 16 years old.

Rediscovered many years later, these personal reflections echo those of Zola, Mallarmé, Cézanne and a great many men of letters and the arts. However, due to a misunderstanding on the part of posterity, they have come to be known as the ‘Proust Questionnaire’, as if he were the author of the questions and answers. 🤵🏻‍♂️🖋️

The concept of the “Proust Questionnaire” was later adopted by Bernard Pivot to round off his programme “Bouillon de Culture”. 📚📺

Currently reading: @evelyneblochdano, “Une jeunesse” by Marcel Proust, @editionsstock 2017, reissued by @livredepoche ❤️‍🩹

#AntoinetteFaure #MarcelProust #BernardPivot #QuestionnairedeProust #Confessions #Confidences #FélixFaure #LeHavre #RTP #proustagram