For most of his life Proust lived at 9 boulevard Malesherbes, near the Madeleine church, where the family moved in 1873 after his brother Robert was born.
The billboard pillar, across the street. Young Proust used to rush to it daily to see who was playing—hoping for Sarah Bernhardt.
Proust's school. Poet Stéphane Mallarmé taught English, and composer Georges Bizet’s son Jacques was a classmate.
Thursdays were off, spent, weather permitting, in the gardens of the Champs-Elysées, where Proust played with his sweetheart Marie de Benardaky, daughter of a Polish nobleman.
Proust obtained a volunteer position at the Bibliothèque Mazarine in the summer of 1896.
In 1900 Proust's family moved to 45 rue de Courcelles, near the Parc Monceau. Known as la plaine Monceau, it was the city’s wealthiest neighborhood.
Proust moved here in 1906. In bedroom, famously lined in cork for soundproofing, he wrote the bulk of his work. But the room’s contents are in the Musée Carnavalet.
This 19th-century mansion recaptures the interior decor and lifestyle of respectable society. That gives us a vivid picture of what a house that Proust might have visited looked like.
Check out contents of Proust's bedroom, famously lined in cork for soundproofing. The principal item is the brass bed in which he slept as a child and wrote much of In Search of Lost Time.
Proust was a regular at Ritz. Even on his deathbed, Proust’s thoughts were of the Ritz. His last words were “Thank you, my dear Odilon, for getting me the Ritz beer.”
The most famous restaurant in the Bois was a favorite of the novel’s heavily satirized, social-climbing Madame Verdurin.
Proust’s widowed aunt sold the Haussmann building, and in 1919 he moved to 44 rue Hamelin in the 16th, (now a three-star hotel), where he died on November 18, 1922.
Proust was buried in Père Lachaise cemetery. If you entry from Gambeta, go straight and turn right at avenue transversale №2.
