Baron de Charles

Baron de Charloux, Palamed of Germans - a representative of the German family: the younger brother of Bazin, Duke of Germans ^[4] and cousin of his wife Oriana ; the son of the Duchess of Bavaria, brother Marie-Enard de Marsant and uncle Robert de Saint-Loup ; the nephew of the Marquise de Villeparisi ; the cousin of the Queen of Naples, the Duke of Brabant, etc. ^[5] Possessing countless noble titles, he preferred to be called the modest, but the most ancient - de Charles ^[6] . A widower, was married to Princess de Bourbon. ^[7] In the circle of relatives and close friends he had the nickname "Meme" ^[8] . Robert de Saint-Loup told the Storyteller , "that even in a closed aristocratic circle, his uncle Palamed is famous for his extraordinary impregnability, that he is arrogant, proud of his nobility."

At the very first meetings, the Storyteller becomes the subject of obvious, but not immediately understood by him interest from de Charles ^[9] , ^[10] . Only the baron’s impudent hysterical trick, as well as the vicious relationship between him and the waistcoat Jupienne , whom he soon became an involuntary and secret witness, not only explained to him the behavior of the baron, but also began to discover the multi-layered and tragic nature of de Charles: “Another creature lived in de Charles , and in this he was different from other people - so a centaur combines a man and a horse in himself - another being made up with de Charles a whole, but I did not notice it ” ^{[10] [11]} . During the second stay of the Storyteller in Balbek, the "baron" begins with the violinist violinist Morel . De Charles, who accompanied Morel everywhere, visited Verdurenov with him and soon became one of the "faithful" in their "clan" ^[12] . But the baron’s desire to dispose of Verduren’s saloon ended in scandal: provoked by Ms. Verduren Morel disowned de Charlie ^[13] .

Years later, in the spring of 1916, the Storyteller collides on the street with the aged de Charles, whose position in society “has been greatly shaken. Less and less interested in social life, quarreling with the whole world because of his grumpy disposition and considering below his dignity to make any attempts to reconcile with those who were called the color of society, he lived in relative isolation. ” That same evening, having parted with the baron, the Storyteller came across an institution that he had accepted as a hotel, but turned out to be a house of dates for lovers of men and thrills. There he becomes a witness to the masochistic orgy de Charles, organized by Jupien ^[14] . Pondering the next stage of the fall of de Charles, the Storyteller came to the idea that in the baron, who had long turned into a woman, “there was a dream of masculinity, hence his desire for brute force, and there was something in him that was invisible to us, but at times giving reflections: a cross of justice, feudal torture, which adorned his medieval imagination with a strange ornament ... In essence, this desire to be tied up, beaten up with all his vileness was a reflection of a dream, as romantic as anyone else, for example, to go to B netsiyu or take on the maintenance of a dancer " ^[15] . In the finale of “Searches,” he again meets the Baron, who recently experienced an apoplexy blow, sitting in a car next to Jupien. Concluding the portrait of de Charloux with this meeting, the Storyteller could not help but admit that in the baron, "finally turning into a ruin, there was not a single feature in which under all layers of fat and rice powder an eternally young, beautiful woman would not appear" ^[16] . In the case of de Charles, the Storyteller goes beyond the framework of the main narrative of the Quest, mentioning the subsequent death of the Baron and the letter that he left to him ^[17] .

• Robert de Montesquieu , a decadent poet, collector and esthetician, was a friend of Mallarmé , Verlaine , Whistler . Montesquieu had a significant influence on Proust, who met him on April 13, 1893 in the salon at Madeleine Lemer ^[18] , “for years they maintained strange relationships, where admiration was mixed with antipathy; after the search for “Lost Time”, all of Paris recognized Montesquieu in Charles " ^[19] , in many tirades de Charles" shepherds hidden on Montesquieu's oral statements that Proust could hear at personal meetings or in literary salons that both visited " ^[20] .
• Baron Albert-Agapius Doazan (1840-1907), “whom Proust met with Ms. Obernon, sister of the Baron. Contemporaries noted antipathetic features in his appearance - exorbitant obesity, puffy face covered with red spots, waxed, painted black mustache ... Andre Gide unmistakably recognized Doazan ”in the guise of Charles ^[21] ,“ a fat man with a pout face and a painted mustache, smothered and blushed ; at one time he spent a fortune on some Polish violinist ” ^[22] . Describing the evolution of the ratio of prototypes in the image of de Charles, the literary critic A. D. Mikhailov noted that at first “in this elegant, elegantly dressed and appropriately behaving person, a man who is certainly secular, there is still very little from Doazan; rather, it is Montesquieu from the portraits of Lucien Duce (1879) and Giovanni Boldini (1897) ... In the third volume and especially in the following, the appearance of Charlus undergoes significant changes. We can say that from Montesquieu he gradually and with ever increasing acceleration turns into Doazan - an untidy fat man with strange, defiant manners. Following the prototype, Proust makes Charlus noticeably grow old ” ^[23] .

• Alain Delon - “Swan's Love” by Volker Schlöndorf (1984)
• John Malkovich - “Found Time” by Raoul Ruiz (1999).
• Didier Sandr - “In Search of Lost Time” by Nina Kompaneyets (2011)

• List of characters in the cycle of novels “In Search of Lost Time”

• I - Proust M. Towards Svan / per. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova . - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 540 p.
• II - Proust M. Under the canopy of girls in bloom / trans. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 607 p.
• III - Proust M. At the Germans / trans. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 665 p.
• IV - Proust M. Sodom and Gomorrah / trans. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 671 p.
• V - Proust M. Captive / per. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 527 p.
• VI - Proust M. Runaway / per. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova (app. L. M. Tsyvyan ). - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2000 .-- 391 p.
• VII - Proust M. Found time / per. with fr. A.N. Smirnova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2001 .-- 382 p.

• Grechanaya E.P. Notes // Proust M. Young Proust in letters (1885-1907) / comp. A. D. Mikhailov. - St. Petersburg .: Limbus Press, 2019 .-- 576 p. - 1,500 copies
• Mikhailov A.D. Poetics of Proust / T. M. Nikolaev . - M .: Languages ​​of Slavic culture, 2012 .-- 504 p.
• Morois Andre . Finding Marcel Proust / per. with fr. D. Efimova. - St. Petersburg .: Limbus Press, 2000 .-- 382 p.
• Daudet Ch. Baron Palamède de Charlus // Répertoire des personnages de "À la recherche du temps perdu" . - Paris: Gallimard, 1927. - P. 61-70.
• Erman M. Charlus (Palamède, baron de Charlus) // Bottins proustiens. Personnages et lieux dans “À la recherche du temps perdu”. - Paris: Gallimard, 2016 .-- P. 42-43.

• Proust Travel Guide: Baron de Charles (1 part)
• Proust Travel Guide: Baron de Charles (2 part)