Lost glories of the Paris Ritz’s belle époque go under the hammer

It was a glamorous home-from-home to Proust, Hemingway and the beau monde. Now the hotel is auctioning off thousands of items from its luxurious past

“At the Ritz, nobody jostles you,” wrote Marcel Proust of the luxury Paris hotel that became his second home. Arriving late in the evening after a day in bed working on his masterpiece Á la Recherche du Temps Perdu, the reclusive and ailing Proust would dine in a private room.

The Ritz’s maitre d’hotel in the early 20th century, Olivier Dabescat, was a mine of information about the hotel’s eminent clientele, mostly European royals and aristocrats, whose preferences and peccadilloes would eventually find their way into Proust’s seven-volume novel.