Léontine Lippmann

Léontine Lippmann (1844–1910), better known by her married name of Madame Arman or Madame Arman de Caillavet was the muse of Anatole France and the hostess of a highly fashionable literary salon during the French Third Republic. She is the model of Madame Verdurin in Proust's Remembrance of Things Past.

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. Neither of them was 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, 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 (1890) and Le Lys rouge (1894).

Mme de Caillavet started her own salon in the at 12 avenue Hoche, near the Place de l'Étoile. Sitting in a bergère 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 France 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, the Hellenist Brochard, Professor Pozzi, Leconte de Lisle, José-Maria de Heredia, Ernest Renan and, of course, Anatole France.

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