Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article The TimesFrench police believe the grandfather on trial for inviting dozens of men to rape his unconscious wife may be linked to at least eight other unsolved crimes is being investigated by police in relation to several other attacks on women as it emerged that investigators made two notable blunders in cases to which he is linked Pelicot has told Vaucluse criminal court in Avignon in southern France that he drugged Gisèle by putting tranquillisers and sleeping pills in her food before inviting men to rape her while she was unconscious in the family home in nearby Mazan over ten years The Pelicots were married for five decades and have three children and seven grandchildren Profitez des avantages de l’offre numérique propose en collaboration avec ses partenaires fonciers pour la construction de maisons neuves définies par le constructeur avec un contrat de construction de maison individuelle Assurances et garanties du constructeur (RC professionnelle Garantie de livraison à prix et délai convenu) as we begin the third volume of In Search of Lost Time– a book in which there is a lot of socializing- to share this ultra rare film footage of what appears to be Marcel Proust some four years before he largely withdrew from society and set about writing his masterpiece: It occurred to me that there is a slight irony about Proust (and a lot of great writers to be fair) in that he is a wonderfully astute anatomist of social life; yet if you’re going to become a great writer having a rich social life is perhaps the worst thing you can do perhaps more any other artform you can think of uniquely painful for its most skilled practitioners Orwell compared writing a novel to having a long debilitating disease Hemingway said of writing “it rips the guts out of you.” Thomas Mann said a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people it’s understandable that a writer would try to lose themselves in socializing it’s not writing; that’s something you do alone Proust knew this very well; it’s one of the points he makes repeatedly in his epic which he famously wrote in fairly extreme isolation over about fourteen years his narrator never seems to get the point that being out in society trying to make his way through the constellation of salons in order to reach the brightest star is a novel about how not to waste your life away populated by characters who do just that and a narrator who nearly does as well I feel this sense particularly strongly in the third volume, a book I am apparently not alone in finding to be a bit more of a slog to get through than the other numbers There’s a tension here (and I suspect it’s intentional) between Proust’s always bright and funny prose and his pantheon of society snobs in which the brightest star in the firmament our narrator worships Madame de Guermantes from afar making a general pest of himself by popping up along the route her carriage takes each morning his family has moved to the dependent Hôtel de Guermantes so it’s not as if they can avoid the Duke and Duchess but there’s no indication that she wants anything to do with our young hero either she’s of the old nobility and he imagines that would have the strangeness of a medieval tapestry or a Gothic window.” As a child we recall he saw her in the Combray church where he was also stunned by the Guermantes figure in the stained-glass windows; one imagines he sees Madame in much the same way: distant hovering ethereally in the upper regions of the sky there’s something delusional about our hero’s crush who is moreover considered the most charming of the highest echelon of the Faubourg Saint-Germain; but what could he possibly have in common with her Emma of “Book Around the Corner,” emphasizes Proust’s use of the verb “choisir“ “We usually fall in love and the verb “fall” implies it is an accident our hero has chosen to fall in love with Oriane de Guermantes because it seems like a good idea; she fits an image of perfection in his mind We’ve seen his worshipful veneration of his mother the object of devotion seems something supernatural his worshipping of flesh and blood women is always a bit extravagant and unreasonable this volume is a quest narrative; in order to get closer to his divinity the narrator must first pass through the circles of the theatre he sees the old nobility floating in their boxes which Proust describes like aquatic monstrosities in an aquarium our narrator finally understands why the actress Berma is great; previously she left him cold because he was too closely analyzing her art; now He has passed from unreasonable worship to aesthetic appreciation He travels to a military base where his friend Robert de Saint-Loup is stationed in order to convince Saint-Loup to introduce him to his aunt It’s somewhat surprising to recall that Proust himself served in the military for a year and the scene illuminates the difference between worship and service There’s something quite admirable about how Saint-Loup goes out of his way to serve his friend and talk him up to his fellow servicemen and conversely something decent about their respect and admiration for Saint-Loup Proust seems to be saying that it is natural for us to look to and admire others even in “democratic” societies we might shun elites Saint-Loup is busy worshipping his own fantasy but who our hero recognizes from a brothel he visited earlier with his schoolboy friend Bloch He calls her “Rachel when from the Lord” after a character in Halévy’s opera La Juive something becoming another strike against her in this society; but we also sense that Rachel really is a great actress herself Our hero feels discomfort and embarrassment for his friend The military episode also allows Proust to bring in the controversy that will soon rip ugly holes in French society: l’affaire Dreyfus was convicted of treason for passing military secrets to the German embassy and sent to Devil’s Island The problem was Dreyfus was innocent; it was soon found that an officer Charles Esterhazy was the real spy high officials in the military suppressed the new evidence and laid additional charges against Dreyfus based on forged documents French society divided into Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards and antisemitism that had seemed to be waning in the Belle Époque roared back to cultural life As our hero makes his entry into the salon of Madame de Villeparisis this time between the diplomat Norpois (who earlier insulted his writing) and his schoolboy friend Bloch When the bore Mme de Villeparisis snubs him The salon is a bit of a hunting ground; the salonnières are the alphas among these pack animals and it’s survival of the wittiest Bloch is snubbed; Madame Swann shows up and is snubbed as a one-time courtesan and wife of a Jew- and we recall that her husband was simply a better person than any of these snobs; the Baron de Charlus arrives and charms the women but our hero is advised not to go home with him something as subtle as the twitching of Madame’s nostrils indicates assent or condemnation and so Proust’s prose is as piquant and witty as ever The one-time social climber recognizes how ridiculous these people are like members of a vanished tribe who don’t know their own time has nearly reached its end we’re listening in on snobs for over a hundred pages and one rather wishes our hero would come to his senses more quickly Please enable JS and disable any ad blocker A courtroom sketch by Valentin Pasquier shows Gisèle Pelicot during his trial at the courthouse in Avignon 2024.Valentin Pasquier/The Associated Press the convicted rapist who horrified France by drugging his then wife so other men could rape her was questioned Thursday about other cases of rape and murder that he’s suspected in Pelicot is serving a 20-year prison term after he was found guilty in December for the horrific sexual abuse of his now ex-wife His lawyer told the Associated Press that he now faces renewed questioning by an investigating magistrate who specializes in so-called cold cases – those that have proved particularly hard to resolve The rape and murder cases date back to the 1990s a property agent who was killed in Paris on Dec said Dominique Pelicot denies any involvement in the killing The other is the attempted armed rape of another property agent in the Paris suburb of Villeparisis on May 11 Pelicot acknowledges that he met the woman and tried to undress her but denies attempted rape Dominique Pelicot has been under formal investigation for both of those crimes since October 2022 – a legal status meaning that investigators believe there is an accumulation of serious evidence against him who represents Narme’s family and the woman subjected to the rape attempt said an array of similarities between the 1991 and 1999 cases suggested the perpetrator might be the same in both Perhaps someone else committed the crime on Sophie Narme But there are such similarities in the mode of operation in the way the victims were approached – and the victims are so identical too – that one can legitimately ask many questions,” Rault said on RTL radio The two cases were grouped together into one investigation in September 2022 that was taken over by the specialized unit for cold cases and serial crimes It works out of the Paris suburb of Nanterre Speaking on her way into Dominique Pelicot’s hearing with the investigating magistrate at the Nanterre cold-case unit Zavarro said he plans to co-operate but that she didn’t know what questions he’d face She noted that he had previously been questioned in October 2023 and had acknowledged having been in contact with the property agent in the 1999 case “He says that he is totally unconnected with the events related to Sophie Narme,” Zavarro said “He has always said that he never met Sophie Narme.” Zavarro said Dominique Pélicot has acknowledged to investigators that he met the other property agent The lawyer said police found traces of his DNA at the scene of their meeting “He acknowledged having been in contact with this young woman He acknowledged having had an altercation with her but with intentions different from attempted rape,” she said could spend the rest of his life behind bars He won’t be eligible to request early release until he’s served at least two-thirds of his 20-year sentence which was the maximum possible for the rapes and other crimes he was convicted of The rape and murder cases occurred more than 10 years before the drugging and rapes of Gisele Pelicot for which Pelicot and 50 other men were convicted – a nearly decade-long stretch of sexual abuse from 2011 He knocked her unconscious by lacing her food and drink with drugs and invited other men he met online to rape her Gisèle Pelicot became a hero to many in France and beyond for courageously demanding that the men’s trial be held in open court The evidence included stomach-churning homemade videos of the abuse that Dominique Pelicot filmed in the couple’s retirement home in the small Provence town of Mazan and elsewhere Police subsequently found more than 20,000 photos and videos in all stored on computer drives and catalogued in folders marked “abuse,” “her rapists,” “night alone” and other titles Report an editorial error Report a technical issue Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community. This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff. Non-subscribers can read and sort comments but will not be able to engage with them in any way. Click here to subscribe If you would like to write a letter to the editor, please forward it to letters@globeandmail.com. Readers can also interact with The Globe on Facebook and Twitter Welcome to The Globe and Mail’s comment community This is a space where subscribers can engage with each other and Globe staff We aim to create a safe and valuable space for discussion and debate If you do not see your comment posted immediately it is being reviewed by the moderation team and may appear shortly We aim to have all comments reviewed in a timely manner Comments that violate our community guidelines will not be posted UPDATED: Read our community guidelines here We have closed comments on this story for legal reasons or for abuse. For more information on our commenting policies and how our community-based moderation works, please read our Community Guidelines and our Terms and Conditions This website is using a security service to protect itself from online attacks The action you just performed triggered the security solution There are several actions that could trigger this block including submitting a certain word or phrase You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page Friends and family feared she had Alzheimer’s after being summoned to a police station in southern France had been dissolving sleeping pills in her food and drink to put her into a deep sleep before raping her He also invited dozens of men to their home to film them raping her as well This shocking case has brought the issue of drug-facilitated sexual crimes into the spotlight in France sees 51 men facing charges for their roles in the rapes The accused come from various social backgrounds and the charges range from rape to repeated participation in these acts has since divorced Pelicot and changed her name The story came to light when Dominique was arrested in 2020 for attempting to film under women’s skirts in a supermarket discovering over 20,000 photos and videos documenting the long-term abuse of his wife stating that he began drugging his wife to do things to her that she usually refused and later started inviting other men to join in with some claiming they believed they had the husband’s consent and others stating they thought the woman had consented to being drugged as part of a sexual fantasy the woman had no memory of the rapes and will see the recordings of the attacks for the first time in court The case has raised concerns in the medical community as the woman had visited gynecologists and neurologists for symptoms including hair loss and memory loss without receiving a correct diagnosis The revelations have also sparked discussions in France about revising rape laws to clarify that sexual acts without consent constitute rape and that consent cannot exist when someone is in an altered state of consciousness Dominique Pelicot faces up to 20 years in prison and is also under investigation for involvement in other crimes Dominique Pelicot is also suspected of the rape and murder of Sophie Narme a 23-year-old real estate agent whose dismembered body was found in an apartment in Paris’s 19th arrondissement in December 1991 Investigators suspect Pelicot arranged to meet Narme at the apartment under the alias “Mr A colleague of Narme recalled meeting a man using the name Duboste who matched Dominique Pelicot’s description Pelicot denies any involvement in the case a 19-year-old identified only as “E,” was attacked under similar circumstances by Pelicot in an apartment in the Paris suburb of Villeparisis in 1999 Blood found at the scene was later matched to Pelicot’s DNA in August 2022 Dominique Pelicot worked in the real estate industry throughout the 1990s and a police profile compiled from witness testimonies is said to “closely resemble” Duboste and the man who attacked “E,” according to an investigation source Dominique Pelicot appeared before a judge in Nanterre where he was charged with the murder of Sophie Narme and the attempted rape of “E.” Follow en.protothema.gr on Google News and be the first to know all the news See all the latest News from Greece and the World, the moment they happen, at en.protothema.gr