The Lemoine Affair

AUTHOR’S NOTE

The reader may have forgotten, since ten years have now passed, that Lemoine, having falsely claimed to have discovered the secret of making diamonds and having received, because of this claim, more than a million francs from the President of De Beers, Sir Julius Werner, who then brought action against him, was afterwards condemned on July 6, 1909 to six years in prison. This legal affair, which, although insignificant, enthralled public opinion at the time, was selected one evening by me, entirely by chance, as the common theme for a few short pieces in which I would set out to imitate the style of a certain number of writers. Even though offering even the slighest explanation of one’s pastiches risks diminishing their effect, nonetheless, lest one’s own legitimate self-esteem be ruffled, I might remind the reader that it is the pastiched writer who is imagined as speaking, faithful not only to his particular mind, but also to the language of his time. In the piece by Saint-Simon for example, the words “good man, bonhomme” and “good woman” do not at all have the familiar, condescending slant they have today. In his Memoirs, Saint-Simon throughout says “good man Chaulnes” (le bonhomme Chaulnes) for the Duc de Chaulnes, for whom he had infinite respect, and likewise for many others.

— Marcel Proust