Prince Edmond de Polignac

Prince Edmond de Polignac Melchior Jean Marie ( born April 19, 1834 in Millemont, Seine- et- Oise, France; † August 8, 1901 in Paris) was a French composer.

Life

Polignac was the son of Jules de Polignac (1780-1847), Prime Minister at the time of King Charles X., and Mary Charlotte Parkins ( 1792-1864 ).

Through the mediation of Edmond de Polignac Charles Haas Marcel Proust met, which was one of the models for the fictional character of Charles Swann in Proust's novel In Search of Lost Time.

Robert de Montesquiou and the Comtesse Greffulhe established contact to Winnaretta Singer, daughter and heiress of the sewing machine manufacturer Isaac Merritt Singer, who lived out her lesbian preferences more or less discrete, as well as his homosexual Polignac. On December 15, 1893, then 59 -year-old bachelor Polignac married the 30 years younger woman went with her harmonious and beneficial for both sides Mariage blanc ( = sham marriage ), which had Polignac stock until death.

Together with his wife founded Polignac in Paris an influential salon, which became a center of cultural life and in which many prominent artists such as Marcel Proust, Jean Cocteau and Claude Monet wrong.