Proust at War

Proust the Soldier

In 1889, a regiment in Orléans inducted an enlistee who was possibly the unhealthiest specimen in the history of the French Army. Afflicted with asthma, coughing spells, sleep disorders, and neurologic or psychiatric maladies that are still speculated about six score years later. Marcel Proust, future author of the seven-volume In Search of Lost Time (formerly translated as Remembrance of Things Past), nonetheless found his service time fascinating. Despite being refused the privilege of re-enlisting after a year's service, he thought about military matters the rest of his life. Certain insights, like this selection, appear in sections of his masterwork, much of which was written during the Great War.

The soldier is convinced that a certain indefinitely extendable time period is accorded him before he is killed. . . .That is the amulet which preserves individuals — and sometimes populations — not from danger, but from the fear of danger, in reality from the belief in danger, which in some cases allows them to brave it without being brave.

In a private letter written by Proust in the early days of the war he clearly foresaw what is in store for the combatants:

In the terrible days we are going through, you have other things to do besides writing letters and bothering with my petty interests, which I assure you seem wholly unimportant when I think that millions of men are going to be massacred in a War of the Worlds comparable with that of Wells,  because the Emperor of Austria thinks it advantageous to have an outlet onto the Black Sea. . .  I have just seen off my brother who was leaving for Verdun at midnight. Alas he insisted on being posted to the actual border. . . I still hope, non-believer though I am, that some supreme miracle will prevent, at the last second, the launch of the omni-murdering machine. . . With all my heart and very sadly yours,  Marcel Proust.

As critic Joel Rich wrote, "Marcel Proust's life was led, one might say, between two martial 'bookends'." One of these bookends was the Franco-Prussian War during which he was born, and which probably influenced his decision to enlist. When his second military bookmark, the Great War, first appeared in 1914, the army remembered their former soldier. He was regularly summoned to Les Invalides for medical examinations to judge his fitness to serve. Of course, over a quarter century, his symptoms had only worsened and he failed every examination. This allowed him both to continue writing and to observe Paris at war. A scathing account of his city worked its way into the seventh volume of Lost Time. As another literary commentator remarked about this section: "There is a stark, embarrassing contrast between life in Paris and life at the front. . . .women wear jewelry made of artillery shells, a somewhat morbid means of showing their patriotism. . . .the absence of young men resulted in a new social dynamic."

Marcel Proust died of bronchial pneumonia in 1922 shortly after the publication of his novel's seventh volume.

Sources: St. Mihiel Trip-Wire, July 2013; Letter from Marcel Proust to Lionel Hauser, 2 August 1914