Proust was born on 10 July 1871 at the home of his great-uncle in the Paris Borough of
Auteuil (the south-western sector of the then-rustic
16th arrondissement), two months after the
Treaty of Frankfurt formally ended the
Franco-Prussian War. His birth coincided with the beginning of the
French Third Republic, during the violence that surrounded the suppression of the
Paris Commune, and his childhood corresponded with the consolidation of the Republic. Much of
In Search of Lost Time concerns the vast changes, most particularly the decline of the aristocracy and the rise of the middle classes, that occurred in France during the
fin de siècle. Proust's father,
Adrien Proust, was a prominent French
pathologist and
epidemiologist, who studied
cholera in Europe and Asia. He wrote numerous articles and books on medicine and hygiene. Proust's mother, Jeanne Clémence (), was the daughter of a wealthy
German–Jewish family from
Alsace. Literate and well-read, she demonstrated a well-developed sense of humour in her letters, and her command of the
English language was sufficient to help with her son's translations of
John Ruskin. Proust was raised in his father's
Catholic faith. He was baptized on 5 August 1871 at the
Church of Saint-Louis-d'Antin and later confirmed as a Catholic, but he never formally practised that faith. He later became an
atheist and was something of a
mystic. By the age of nine, Proust had had his first serious
asthma attack, and thereafter was considered a sickly child. Proust spent long holidays in the village of
Illiers. This village, combined with recollections of his great-uncle's house in Auteuil, became the model for the fictional town of Combray, where some of the most important scenes of
In Search of Lost Time take place. (Illiers was renamed Illiers-Combray in 1971 on the occasion of the Proust centenary celebrations.) In 1882, at the age of eleven, Proust became a pupil at the
Lycée Condorcet; however, his education was disrupted by his illness. Despite this, he excelled in literature, receiving an award in his final year. Thanks to his classmates, he was able to gain access to some of the salons of the upper
bourgeoisie, providing him with copious material for
In Search of Lost Time. (left), and
Lucien Daudet (right), In spite of his poor health, Proust served a year (1889–90) in the French army, stationed at Coligny Barracks in
Orléans, an experience that provided a lengthy episode in ''
The Guermantes' Way, part three of his novel. As a young man, Proust was a dilettante and a social climber whose aspirations as a writer were hampered by his lack of self-discipline. His reputation from this period, as a snob and an amateur, contributed to his later troubles with getting Swann's Way, the first part of his large-scale novel, published in 1913. At this time, he attended the salons'' of
Mme Straus, widow of
Georges Bizet and mother of Proust's childhood friend Jacques Bizet, of
Madeleine Lemaire and of
Mme Arman de Caillavet, one of the models for Madame Verdurin, and mother of his friend
Gaston Arman de Caillavet, with whose fiancée (Jeanne Pouquet) he was in love. It is through Mme Arman de Caillavet, he made the acquaintance of
Anatole France, her lover. Proust had a close relationship with his mother. To appease his father, who insisted that he pursue a career, Proust obtained a volunteer position at
Bibliothèque Mazarine in the summer of 1896. After exerting considerable effort, he obtained a sick leave that extended for several years until he was considered to have resigned. He never worked at his job, and he did not move from his parents' apartment until after both were dead. Finally, and most crushingly, Proust's beloved mother died in September 1905. She left him a considerable inheritance. His health throughout this period continued to deteriorate. Proust spent the last three years of his life mostly confined to his bedroom of his apartment 44 rue Hamelin (in
Chaillot), sleeping during the day and working at night to complete his novel. He died of
pneumonia and a
pulmonary abscess in 1922.
Man Ray took the photograph of Proust on his deathbed. He was buried in the
Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Personal life Proust is known to have been
homosexual; his sexuality and
relationships with men are often discussed by his biographers. Although his housekeeper,
Céleste Albaret, denies this aspect of Proust's sexuality in her memoirs, her denial runs contrary to the statements of many of Proust's friends and contemporaries, including his fellow writer
André Gide as well as his
valet Ernest A. Forssgren. Proust never openly disclosed his homosexuality, though his family and close friends either knew or suspected it. In 1897, he fought a
duel with writer
Jean Lorrain, who publicly questioned the nature of Proust's relationship with Proust's lover
Lucien Daudet; both duellists survived. Despite Proust's public denials, his romantic relationship with composer
Reynaldo Hahn On the night of 11 January 1918, Proust was one of the men identified by police in a raid on a male
brothel run by Albert Le Cuziat. Proust's friend
Paul Morand openly teased Proust about his visits to
male prostitutes. In his journal, Morand refers to Proust, as well as Gide, as "constantly hunting, never satiated by their adventures ... eternal prowlers, tireless sexual adventurers." The exact influence of Proust's sexuality on his writing is a topic of debate. However,
In Search of Lost Time discusses homosexuality at length and features several principal characters, both men and women, who are either homosexual or
bisexual: the Baron de Charlus, Robert de Saint-Loup, Odette de Crécy, and Albertine Simonet. Homosexuality also appears as a theme in
Les plaisirs et les jours and his unfinished novel,
Jean Santeuil. Proust inherited much of his mother's political outlook, which was supportive of the
French Third Republic and near the
liberal centre of French politics. In an 1892 article published in
Le Banquet entitled "L'Irréligion d'État", Proust condemned extreme
anti-clerical measures such as the expulsion of monks, observing that "one might just be surprised that the negation of religion should bring in its wake the same
fanaticism, intolerance, and persecution as religion itself." He argued that
socialism posed a greater threat to society than the Church. Proust always rejected the bigoted and illiberal views harbored by many priests at the time, but believed that the most enlightened clerics could be just as progressive as the most enlightened secularists, and that both could serve the cause of "the advanced liberal Republic". He approved of the more moderate stance taken in 1906 by
Aristide Briand, whom he described as "admirable". In 1919, when representatives of the right-wing
Action Française published a manifesto upholding
French colonialism and the
Catholic Church as the embodiment of civilised values, Proust rejected their nationalistic and chauvinistic views in favor of a
liberal pluralist vision which acknowledged
Christianity's
cultural legacy in France. Proust was considered a
hypochondriac by his doctors. His correspondence provides some clues on his symptoms. According to Yellowlees Douglas, Proust suffered from the
vascular subtype of Ehlers–Danlos Syndrome. ==Early writing==