My lineageChapter III / VIII1863–1928

Alfred and Cantepie, the Englishman of Paris

What crosses from one world to another : sport and letters

Henry’s only son, Alfred Thomas Swann, would not be a chemist. A man of private means, a sportsman and a man of letters, he lived as a Parisian and stayed English, down to his papers.

A child of Paris

Alfred Thomas Swann was born in Paris in April 1863 and grew up in the 16th arrondissement. The records would call him a property owner, a man of private means, a man of letters.

English sports at Condorcet

A pupil at the Lycée Condorcet, he spent every summer holiday in Brighton. In 1879 and 1880 he introduced his schoolmates to “methodical and reasoned” training, to running and football, and formed teams. He helped organise the Société des Courses du Bois de Boulogne. After the father’s pills, the son’s sports crossed the Channel.

1894: staying English

In June 1894, Alfred formally renounced French nationality to keep his British one. He lived in Paris, wrote, ran and mixed with the French, without dissolving into them.

Cantepie, the house of the swan

In Cambremer, in the heart of the Pays d’Auge, the manor of Cantepie was built around 1600 for the Le Gouez family. Once it belonged to the Swanns, the Caen architect René Jacques Baumier enlarged it. On the roof, a wrought-iron finial takes the shape of a swan. On a chimney piece, a carved plaque shows three magpies — pies in French — a second pun, this time on Cantepie.

In 1901–1902, the painter Géo Lefèvre decorated the dining room with a frieze after Victor Hugo’s La Fiancée du timbalier. The decor is now listed in France’s general inventory of cultural heritage.

Literary circles

Alfred moved in the literary societies of the Belle Époque, alongside Jules Renard, Georges Bourdon, Henri Morisset and Raymond Bigot. According to family papers, Jules Renard dedicated a piece to him in 1906. Alfred died in Paris on 16 November 1928.

Proust and the Swann name

Henry Hind Swann was a friend of Adrien Proust, Marcel’s father, and the novelist knew Cantepie from Cabourg; he would give the name Cambremer to a family in In Search of Lost Time. In a 1920 letter to Harry Swann, Proust explains that he wanted an Anglo-Saxon-looking name for his character, with two ns. The name does come from this world; the model for Charles Swann, however, remains first of all Charles Haas, as Proust himself acknowledged.