" A lesson in tact "

The episode in Les Jeunes filles en fleurs in which the narrator asks Madame de Villeparisis about the writers he admires and whom she has known gives rise to a very Beuvian tirade. The old woman harshly judges writers such as Chateaubriand, Balzac, Hugo, Vigny and Stendhal. Her assessment of Stendhal is closely modelled on Sainte-Beuve's criticism of the novelist. Making no secret of her disdain for these literary figures, whose works she ignores, she prefers " Molé, Fontanes, Vitrolles ", " Pasquier, Lebrun, Salvandy or Daru ". Born in the ^eighteenth century, these distinguished men, whether politicians or academics, have in common that they have lived through all the regimes while continuing to exercise high public responsibilities. All are endowed " with that modesty and self-effacement " that are the hallmark of men of the world. They are all tactful, a quality to which Sainte-Beuve was extremely sensitive, as he criticized the impropriety and impudence of certain writers. Madame de Villeparisis uses this distinguishing criterion to contrast Balzac, whom she describes as " homme très commun ", with Sainte-Beuve, whom she describes as " un homme de bonne compagnie ". Tact, a worldly value par excellence that denotes a sense of propriety, is considered a feminine virtue, developed by frequenting the salons. This good taste is the hallmark of good society, to which Madame de Villeparisis belongs.

Like Sainte-Beuve, Proust makes great use of this notion of tact, which he sees as an essential value. In Focus on, the opposition between those who are tactful, such as Swann, who has an intuitive appreciation of the decorum and " nuance de chic " of this or that social gathering, and those who lack this appropriateness and savoir-vivre, such as Bloch, recurs again and again. However, the narrator of La Recherche insists on the errors of judgment to which this sense of propriety can lead. He makes no secret of his disagreements with Madame de Villeparisis, who discredits Chateaubriand, Hugo or Balzac - among others - on the sole grounds that they lack wit in salon conversation.

This antagonism between writers and those who have mastered the art of behaving in a salon or in " un conseil des ministres " is exemplified by the controversy between Molé and Vigny, when the latter was admitted to the Académie française. Having been too long and emphatic in his speech, Vigny is given a " lesson in tact " by Molé, who possesses the utmost charm and delicacy necessary for life in society, as Sainte-Beuve points out in his eulogistic portrait of him in Chateaubriand et son groupe littéraire. The episode of his reception at the Académie, evoked by Madame de Villeparisis - , echoing Sainte-Beuve's own words - is, in this respect, a model of the contrast between men of letters and men of the world, a fundamental opposition for the author of Les Lundis, which is also an essential motif in La Recherche.