Proust's Daily Morning Routine
In Search of Lost Croissants
Portrait of Marcel Proust, by Jacques Emile-Blanche (1892).
Like many authors and creatives, Marcel Proust stuck to a strict morning routine. It was recorded by his maid Céleste, who had it explained to her by his valet Nicolas Cottin.
Every morning he took his breakfast in two stages. Immediately after awakening, he would take his first cup of coffee, a café au lait with a fresh croissant. Then, a little later, he would have a second croissant brought to him with another cup of coffee. The coffee had to be extremely strong, and filled with plenty of hot milk. As he grew older, he stopped eating croissants and would take only coffee, drinking milk instead of eating breakfast. Most importantly, the cups had to match the saucers.
I read this description in Christopher Prendergast’s lovely essay-collection on Proust, titled “Living and Dying with Marcel Proust.” While today it might seem absurd to have a valet and a maid, his morning routine strikes me as highly relatable. What better way to start the day than with a double dose of coffee and croissants!
The portrait above is of Proust as a young man. Aged just 21, he is still finding his way in Parisian society life. It’s many years before he would write his celebrated roman à clef “In Search of Lost Time”, but we can imagine him already taking mental notes of the people he meets.
Here he is depicted as a dandy, almost like a character in his own novel. The striking contrast between the black suit against the dark background, juxtaposed with the white orchid in his buttonhole and the white skin of his pale face, makes for a deeply resonant image. The author as a young man. Today the portrait hangs in the Musée d’Orsay in Paris.
Julian