Jean-Yves Patte was inspired by the letters exchanged by Marcel Proust and his friend, Venezuelan composer Reynaldo Hahn, to recount this audio cartography of France in the Belle époque. Far from mundane clubs, both loved cabaret shows and their biting, poetic songs, as shown in the many allusions to songs found in the writer's 'In Search of Lost Time' as well as the composer's own written works. Now newly and fully restored from sound archives, one can find again the voices of Charlus, Mayol and Yvette Guilbert and feel the social scope of these popular treasures from the early twentieth century.