Léontine Lippmann better known by her married name of Madame Arman or Madame Arman de Caillavet was the muse

Muse

The Muses in Greek mythology, poetry, and literature, are the goddesses who inspire the creation of literature and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge, related orally for centuries in the ancient culture, that was contained in poetic lyrics and myths...

 of Anatole France

Anatole France

Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...

 and the hostess of a highly fashionable literary salon

Salon (gathering)

A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...

 during the French Third Republic

French Third Republic

The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...

. She is the model of Madame Verdurin in Proust

Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...

's Remembrance of Things Past

In Search of Lost Time

In Search of Lost Time or Remembrance of Things Past is a novel in seven volumes by Marcel Proust. His most prominent work, it is popularly known for its considerable length and the notion of involuntary memory, the most famous example being the "episode of the madeleine." The novel is widely...

.

Life

Born into a wealthy Jewish family as a banker's daughter, she married Albert Arman. Arman's mother's maiden name was Caillavet and so they called themselves Arman de Caillavet. They had one child, the playwright Gaston Arman de Caillavet

Gaston Arman de Caillavet

Gaston Arman de Caillavet was a French playwright. He was the son of Albert Arman de Caillavet and Léontine Lippmann, the muse of Anatole France. In April 1893 he married Jeanne Pouquet...

. Neither of them were faithful to the other, though they never divorced.

Beautiful in her youth, with clear blue eyes, black hair, and a mocking mouth, she was intelligent, cultivated and spoke four languages. She often attended the salons of Lydie Aubernon and it was there that she met Anatole France

Anatole France

Anatole France , born François-Anatole Thibault, , was a French poet, journalist, and novelist. He was born in Paris, and died in Saint-Cyr-sur-Loire. He was a successful novelist, with several best-sellers. Ironic and skeptical, he was considered in his day the ideal French man of letters...

, in 1883. From 1888 there followed years of a passionate, exclusive liaison between the pair, often all the stormier for the jealousy of both parties. She inspired his Thaïs

Thaïs (novel)

Thaïs is a novel by Anatole France published in 1890. It is based on events in the life of Saint Thaïs of Egypt, a legendary convert to Christianity who is said to have lived in the 4th century...

(1890) and Le Lys rouge (1894).

The salon

Mme de Caillavet started her own salon in the hôtel particulier at 12 avenue Hoche, near the Place de l'Étoile

Place de l'Étoile

The Place Charles de Gaulle, , historically known as the Place de l'Étoile , is a large road junction in Paris, France, the meeting point of twelve straight avenues including the Champs-Élysées which continues to the east. It was renamed in 1970 following the death of General and President Charles...

. Sitting in a bergère

Bergère

A bergère is an enclosed upholstered French armchair with an upholstered back and armrests on upholstered frames. The seat frame is over-upholstered, but the rest of the wooden framing is exposed: it may be moulded or carved, and of beech, painted or gilded, or of fruitwood, walnut or mahogany...

to the right of the fireplace, with Anatole France standing in front of the fireplace, every Sunday she welcomed the French fashionable, intellectual and political elites, including writers, actors, lawyers and députés (but not musicians, since she or Anatole did not like music). On Wednesdays, Mme de Caillavet held conversational dinners on the model of those of Mme Aubernon, where could be found Alexandre Dumas

Alexandre Dumas, fils

Alexandre Dumas, fils was a French author and dramatist. He was the son of Alexandre Dumas, père, also a writer and playwright.-Biography:...

, the Hellenist Brochard, Professor Pozzi, Leconte de Lisle, José-Maria de Heredia, Ernest Renan

Ernest Renan

Ernest Renan was a French expert of Middle East ancient languages and civilizations, philosopher and writer, devoted to his native province of Brittany...

 and, of course, Anatole France.

Attendees at her Salon

Count Joseph Primoli, Jean-Élie, Duke Decazes

Jean, duc Decazes

Jean-Élie-Octave-Louis-Sévère-Amanien Decazes de Glücksburg, 3rd Duc Decazes and 3rd Hertig af Glücksberg was a French aristocrat and sportsman.-Biography:...

; Prince and Princess Bibesco, Baron and Baroness Rothschild, Robert de Montesquiou

Robert de Montesquiou

Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac , was a French aesthete, Symbolist poet, art collector and dandy....

, Anna de Noailles, Louis Barthou

Louis Barthou

Jean Louis Barthou was a French politician of the Third Republic.-Early years:He was born in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Pyrénées-Atlantiques, and served as Deputy from that constituency. He was an authority on trade union history and law. Barthou was Prime Minister in 1913, and held ministerial office...

, Marie

Marie Curie

Marie Skłodowska-Curie was a physicist and chemist famous for her pioneering research on radioactivity. She was the first person honored with two Nobel Prizes—in physics and chemistry...

 and Pierre Curie

Pierre Curie

Pierre Curie was a French physicist, a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism, piezoelectricity and radioactivity, and Nobel laureate. He was the son of Dr. Eugène Curie and Sophie-Claire Depouilly Curie ...

, Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...

, Count de Lisle, J.-H. Rosny the elder

J.-H. Rosny aîné

J.-H. Rosny aîné was the pseudonym of Joseph Henri Honoré Boex , a French author of Belgian origin who is considered one of the founding figures of modern science fiction. Born in Brussels in 1856, he wrote in the French language, together with his younger brother Séraphin Justin François Boex...

, Gabriel Hanotaux

Gabriel Hanotaux

Albert Auguste Gabriel Hanotaux, known as Gabriel Hanotaux was a French statesman and historian.-Biography:...

, Marcel Prévost

Marcel Prévost

Eugene Marcel Prévost was a French author and dramatist.-Biography:He was born in Paris on 1 May 1862, and educated at Jesuit schools in Bordeaux and Paris, entering the École polytechnique in 1882...

, Pierre Loti

Pierre Loti

Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906...

, Maurice Barrès

Maurice Barrès

Maurice Barrès was a French novelist, journalist, and socialist politician and agitator known for his nationalist and antisemitic views....

, Marcelle Tinayre

Marcelle Tinayre

Marcelle Marguerite Suzanne Tinayre, born October 8, 1870 in Tulle, Corrèze, and died August 23, 1948 in Grossouvre, Cher, was a French woman of letters and prolific author...

, Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt

Sarah Bernhardt was a French stage and early film actress, and has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known". Bernhardt made her fame on the stages of France in the 1870s, and was soon in demand in Europe and the Americas...

, the actress Réjane, Fernand Gregh

Fernand Gregh

Fernand Gregh was a French poet and literary critic....

, abbé Mugnier, the actor Lucien Guitry

Lucien Guitry

Lucien Germain Guitry was a French actor.In 1885, while living in Saint Petersburg, he appeared at the French Theatre. His son, the future actor, writer and director Sacha Guitry, was born in Saint Petersburg and named in honour of Tsar Alexander III...

 and his son Sacha Guitry

Sacha Guitry

Alexandre-Pierre Georges Guitry was a French stage actor, film actor, director, screenwriter, and playwright of the Boulevard theatre.- Biography :...

, the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle

Antoine Bourdelle

Antoine Bourdelle , originally Émile Antoine Bourdelle, was an influential and prolific French sculptor, painter, and teacher.-Career:...

, the painter Munkaczy, Hugo Ogetti, Commandant Rivière, Georg Brandes

Georg Brandes

Georg Morris Cohen Brandes was a Danish critic and scholar who had great influence on Scandinavian and European literature from the 1870s through the turn of the 20th century. He is seen as the theorist behind the "Modern Breakthrough" of Scandinavian culture...

, Jules Lemaitre

Jules Lemaître

François Élie Jules Lemaître , was a French critic and dramatist.He was born at Vennecy . He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but was already well known for his literary criticism, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote his time to literature...

, Gugliemo Ferrero, the abbot and astronomer Théophile Moreux

Théophile Moreux

-Life:Moreux was born at Argent-sur-Sauldre, Cher on 20 November 1867.He initiated the Bourges Observatory at the seminary St Célestin at Bourges, where he was a professor of science and mathematics....

, Colette

Colette

Colette was the surname of the French novelist and performer Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette . She is best known for her novel Gigi, upon which Lerner and Loewe based the stage and film musical comedies of the same title.-Early life and marriage:Colette was born to retired military officer Jules-Joseph...

 and her first husband Henry Gauthier-Villars

Henry Gauthier-Villars

Henry Gauthier-Villars or Willy, his nom-de-plume, was a French fin-de-siecle writer and music critic who is today mostly known as the mentor and bisexual first husband of Colette...

 (known as Willy), Marcel Schwob

Marcel Schwob

Marcel Schwob was a Jewish French writer.-Biography:He was born in Chaville, Hauts-de-Seine on 23 August 1867...

, Robert de Flers

Robert de Flers

Robert de Flers was a French playwright, opera librettist, and journalist....

, Paul de Grunebaum, Charles Rappoport, François Crucy, Michel Corday, Joseph Reinach

Joseph Reinach

Joseph Reinach was a French author and politician.He was born in Paris. His two brothers Salomon and Theodore would become well known in the field of archaeology. After studying at the Lycée Condorcet he was called to the bar in 1887...

, Tristan Bernard

Tristan Bernard

Tristan Bernard was a French playwright, novelist, journalist and lawyer.-Life:Born Paul Bernard into a Jewish family in Besançon, Doubs, Franche-Comté, France, he was the son of an architect...

, the dancer Loïe Fuller

Loie Fuller

Loie Fuller Loie Fuller Loie Fuller (also Loïe Fuller; (January 15, 1862 – January 1, 1928) was a pioneer of both modern dance and theatrical lighting techniques.-Career:...

, Georges Clemenceau

Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...

, Prof. Samuel-Jean Pozzi

Samuel Jean de Pozzi

Samuel-Jean Pozzi was a French surgeon and gynecologist. He was also interested in anthropology and neurology.-Life:Samuel-Jean Pozzy was born in Bergerac, Dordogne to a family of Italian/Swiss descent. His father, Benjamin Dominique Pozzy, was a minister of the Reformed Church of France...

, Dr. Paul-Louis Couchoud

Paul-Louis Couchoud

Paul-Louis Couchoud was a French author and poet. He was also a former scholar of the École Normale, as well as a professor of philosophy and doctor of medicine.-References:...

, Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand

Aristide Briand was a French statesman who served eleven terms as Prime Minister of France during the French Third Republic and received the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize.- Early life :...

, Léon Blum

Léon Blum

André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...

, Jean Jaurès

Jean Jaurès

Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...

, Léopold Kaher, Pierre Mille, Charles Maurras

Charles Maurras

Charles-Marie-Photius Maurras was a French author, poet, and critic. He was a leader and principal thinker of Action Française, a political movement that was monarchist, anti-parliamentarist, and counter-revolutionary. Maurras' ideas greatly influenced National Catholicism and "nationalisme...

 and Raymond Poincaré

Raymond Poincaré

Raymond Poincaré was a French statesman who served as Prime Minister of France on five separate occasions and as President of France from 1913 to 1920. Poincaré was a conservative leader primarily committed to political and social stability...

.

Sources

• Jeanne Maurice Pouquet, Le Salon de Madame Arman de Caillavet, 1926.
• George Painter
  George Painter
  George Duncan Painter, OBE known as George D. Painter, was an English author most famous as a biographer of Marcel Proust....
  
  , Marcel Proust, London, Cratton and Windus, 1959