Meet Le cygne de Cambrai: Francois Fenelon. He’s a French archbishop from the late 1600’s who somehow took on the sobriquet The Swan of Cambrai. And could possibly, just possibly, have served as inspiration for the Swann of Combray front and center in Swann’s Way.
It could be nothing more than that. Just a simple borrowing of… a name. A nom de plume, so to speak. Maybe it’s all in fun. A pulling of the leg, Proust having some fun. Un signe de Cambrai is in a sign hinting at Cambrai, a sign of Cambrai, if you will, and Swann nothing more than a cygne or a sign, a holder of meaning, a word in flight.
I’m showing my true colors here. My background studying signs – classes taken in semiotics and deconstruction under Paul deMan. Words themselves modifying ever so slightly – a vowel change here, an added consonant there, names melding into one another- a Marcel here, a Morel there. A Charles and a Charlus – as if MP took the name Charles and changed the e to a u, literally showing the usage, the wear, the degradation of a name. Quintessential Proust- this slippage of spelling and meaning, words being used up, worn thin by habit, time’s erosive quality
Or take the scene when Marcel receives a letter he thinks is from Albertine after she’s dead. He thinks she’s come back to life. But then he realizes he’s misread the spelling. It’s Gilberte who has written the letter, a mix up of the names Albertine and Gilberte.
But I think this sign of Combray/Cambrai is more significant – part of a larger plan having to do with the ten words of a phrase I keep coming back to. –une église, un quatuor, la rivalité de François Ier et Charles V?
p. 256 – reference to Fenelon, George Sand, martelant des syllable.
“Il y a, dit Brichot en martelant les syllabes, une définition bien curieuse de l’intelligence dans ce doux anarchiste de Fénelon…”
Which of course is odd, to add the word martelant (hammering) to Fenelon – unless because it links him to Cambray and to Martin and Martine with their hammers.
The English translates ‘martelant’ as with a resonant smack upon every syllable,.’ which doesn’t have the same sense, particularly when considering that only a paragraph later they’re talking about how someone didn’t know that George Sand was a pseudonym for a woman. When we’re talking about the pseudonym of Swann as Cygne de Combray. And when George Sand is the author of the books given to him by his mother the night of the drame de coucher. I know all of this is ‘small stuff,’ but I bet Proust had a little laugh about it- tongue in cheek hints.
and p. 169 Sodome et Gomorrhe – Mme Poussin of Combray mentioned in relation to Fenelon- the narrator talking about the pronunciation of his name, the accent aigu.
So twice, the author calling attention to the pronunciation of his name, both times with a nod to Combray.