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Apartment · Chaillot (16th) · 16e arrondissement

44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin

The buildingStill standing
Getting inOutside only
What's there nowSomeone else

A private building. Exterior only.

Marcel Proust's last address, and the flat he hated. He moved here in 1919 when 102 boulevard Haussmann was sold out from under him, called it an ignoble hovel, finished correcting his novel here, and died in the building on 18 November 1922.

Address
44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin, 75016 Paris
Years
Proust's last address, 1919–1922

The place, briefly

In early 1919 the building at 102 boulevard Haussmann was sold, and Marcel Proust — who had spent thirteen years in a cork-lined bedroom there writing In Search of Lost Time — had to move. He ended up at 44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin, in Chaillot, and made no secret of what he thought of it. He called it an ignoble hovel.

The last three years of his life were spent here, and they were the years the work came out. The novel's later volumes were being published and corrected while his health collapsed, and the famous account of his final months is of a man racing his own body to finish the book, writing and revising in bed with the manuscript around him.

He died in the flat on 18 November 1922, of pneumonia, having refused medical treatment. He was fifty-one. Substantial parts of In Search of Lost Time were still unpublished, and appeared over the following five years.

He is buried at Père-Lachaise, in division 85.

There is nothing here for a visitor beyond the façade, and that is worth saying plainly. The Proust address people photograph is the boulevard Haussmann one, because that is where the cork was and the myth is. This is the other one: the flat he did not want, in a quarter he had not chosen, where the work was finished and the writer died.

Key facts

When
1919 to 1922 — Proust's last address
Why he came here
102 boulevard Haussmann was sold in early 1919
What he called it
An ignoble hovel
What happened here
The later volumes of In Search of Lost Time were corrected as his health failed
Died
18 November 1922, of pneumonia, aged 51 — having refused treatment
Buried
Père-Lachaise, division 85
Access
Private building, exterior only

Timeline

  1. 1919

    102 boulevard Haussmann is sold; Proust moves to 44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin.

  2. 1919–1922

    The later volumes of In Search of Lost Time are corrected here as his health declines.

  3. 18 November 1922

    Proust dies in the flat, of pneumonia, aged 51.

  4. 1923–1927

    The remaining volumes of the novel are published posthumously.

On the map

Questions before you go

Where did Marcel Proust die?

At 44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin in the 16th arrondissement, on 18 November 1922. He was fifty-one, the cause was pneumonia, and he had refused medical treatment. Several volumes of In Search of Lost Time were still unpublished.

Why did Proust move here?

He had no choice. The building at 102 boulevard Haussmann, where he had spent thirteen years and written most of his novel, was sold in early 1919. He moved to the rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin and disliked it, calling the flat an ignoble hovel.

Is there anything to see at 44 rue de l'Amiral-Hamelin?

Only the building from the street — it is private. The Proust address most people visit is 102 boulevard Haussmann, because that is where the cork-lined room was; the room's contents are at the Musée Carnavalet. This one is where the work was finished and the writer died.

Where is Proust buried?

In Père-Lachaise cemetery, division 85, in the 20th arrondissement.

Writers who knew this place

Illustrated portrait of Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

French · French novelist of the seven-volume In Search of Lost Time, written at night in a cork-lined room — the book that made memory itself the story.

Lived here · 1919–1922

Proust's last address, taken in 1919 when the boulevard Haussmann building was sold. He called it an ignoble hovel, corrected the later volumes of his novel here as his health failed, and died in the flat on 18 November 1922.

Balade du côté de chez Proust

Within walking distance

The Friday Letter

Paris, one address at a time.

The cafés, studios, and walk-up flats where the work was made — one story from the map in every letter.

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