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Updated: June 3, 2025
Then the legend of Saint-Droctoveus was particularly significant; being the legend of the first abbot of my dear Abbey. The poem in French verse on the burial of Saint-Germain led me actually into the nave of that venerable basilica which was the umbilicus of Christian Gaul. The "Golden Legend" is in itself a vast and gracious work.
The archdeacon was afraid of meeting some one there; he feared every human countenance; he had just avoided the University and the Bourg Saint-Germain; he wished to re-enter the streets as late as possible. He skirted the Pre-aux-Clercs, took the deserted path which separated it from the Dieu-Neuf, and at last reached the water's edge.
Even the artists' clubs had not all closed their doors, though so many young painters were mixing blood with mud and watching impressionistic pictures of ruined villages through the smoke of shells. Through cigarette smoke I gazed at the oddest crowd in one of these clubs off the Boulevard Saint-Germain.
I will simply add an account of the humiliation to which this haughty cynic was reduced. He hired a house in the Rue de l'Universite with a partition wall between his garden and that of the Jacobins of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Madame la Duchesse de Berry was living as usual, amid the loftiest pride, and the vilest servitude; amid penitence the most austere at the Carmelite convent of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, and suppers the most profaned by vile company, filthiness, and impiety; amid the most shameless debauchery, and the most horrible fear of the devil and death; when lo! she fell ill at the Luxembourg.
Mademoiselle de Saint-Germain was in the bloom of youth; her eyes were small, but very bright and sparkling, and, like her hair, were black; her complexion was lively and clear, though not fair: she, had an agreeable mouth, two fine rows of teeth, a neck as handsome as one could wish, and a most delightful shape; she had a particular elegance in her elbows, which, however, she did not show to advantage; her hands were rather large and not very white; her feet, though not of the smallest, were well shaped; she trusted to Providence, and used no art to set off those graces which she had received from nature; but, notwithstanding her negligence in the embellishment of her charms, there was something so lively in her person, that the Chevalier de Grammont was caught at first sight; her wit and humour corresponded with her other qualities, being quite easy and perfectly charming; she was all mirth, all life, all complaisance and politeness, and all was natural, and always the same without any variation.
A few rich townspeople have crept into the miniature Faubourg Saint-Germain, thanks to their money or their aristocratic leanings. But despite their forty years, the circle still say of them, "Young So-and-so has sound opinions," and of such do they make deputies. As a rule, the elderly spinsters are their patronesses, not without comment.
"Lately," writes the procureur syndic of Saint-Germain, "the corpse of a father of a family, found in the fields with his mouth still filled with the grass he had striven to chew, exasperates and arouses the spirit of the poor creatures awaiting a similar fate." What then, do people in the towns do in order to survive?
He explained to me that he was going to Saint-Germain to pay an ordinary visit; that on this occasion there would be some change in the ceremonial; explained the matter, and enlarged with eagerness on the necessity of not abandoning legitimate rights. "How glad I am to see you think thus," I replied, "and how well you act in advocating these forms, the neglect of which tarnishes everything."
For many years, albeit and especially before his marriage M. Swann the younger came often to see them at Combray, my great-aunt and grandparents never suspected that he had entirely ceased to live in the kind of society which his family had frequented, or that, under the sort of incognito which the name of Swann gave him among us, they were harbouring with the complete innocence of a family of honest innkeepers who have in their midst some distinguished highwayman and never know it one of the smartest members of the Jockey Club, a particular friend of the Comte de Paris and of the Prince of Wales, and one of the men most sought after in the aristocratic world of the Faubourg Saint-Germain.
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