Summary

The second section of The Man in the Red Coat opens with a description of duel-fighting in the Belle Époque. The practice gained prominence as a way for upper-class men to defend and assert their honor: this mentality became known as the “Mentality of the Boulevards” – a phrase coined by writer Maupassant. Barnes here evokes the motif of a bullet, as he hints he will do several times in the book: he describes a bullet that shot Dr. Adrien Proust, friend of Pozzi’s and father of Marcel Proust.

Next, Barnes touches lightly upon the many medical advances made by doctors and surgeons like Pozzi during this time before returning to Montesquiou’s life. The latter shared his life with Gabriel Yturri, an Argentinian secretary, and the two became well-known for their self-celebrating costumes and dandyism. Baudelaire described dandyism as “an ill-defined institution...