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How did the Dreyfus affair shape Marcel Proust’s view of aristocratic society?

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Portrait of French author Marcel Proust, seated with his hand resting thoughtfully against his chin, wearing a dark suit and looking directly at the camera. — Marcel Proust French author Marcel Proust wrote what is considered one of the supreme achievements of modern fiction, the seven-part autobiographical novel *À la recherche du temps perdu* (1913–27; *In Search of Lost Time*).

The Dreyfus affair—a period of intense political and social division in France—played a pivotal role in shaping Marcel Proust’s perspective on the nobility. Although Proust was a frequent guest in the most exclusive aristocratic drawing rooms, his active involvement in the movement to exonerate Alfred Dreyfus led to a profound disillusionment with that social class.12

By helping to organize petitions and assisting Dreyfus’s lawyer, Fernand-Gustave-Gaston Labori, Proust courageously risked social ostracism. This experience of witnessing the prejudices and moral failings within high society crystallized his critical view of the aristocracy, a sentiment that became clearly visible in his later literary work, particularly as he moved toward the satirical elements found in his masterpiece, À la recherche du temps perdu.2