My son sometimes says something I’ve done is cringe, and I mean no harm to Illiers when I say this (though I hate when he says it to me!) but I do find it a bit that. Of course the town’s the real deal, and yes I’ve been there and it’s charming, but a name… in fiction becoming real? Idk. It’s def not how I read Proust or think about Proust.
Just for interest, here’s the only time Illiers is mentioned- in the entire ISOLT. And it’s in the context of hilarity. And so Saints. And to the patron saint of blacksmiths – I kid you not.
“But I don’t see where Saint Hilaire comes in.”
“Why yes, have you never noticed, in the corner of the window, a lady in a yellow robe? Very well, that is Saint Hilaire, who is also known, you will remember, in certain parts of the country as Saint Illiers, Saint Hèlier, and even, in the Jura, Saint Ylie. But these various corruptions of Sanctus Hilarius are by no means the most curious that have occurred in the names of the blessed Saints. Take, for example, my good Eulalie, the case of your own patron, Sancta Eulalia; do you know what she has become in Burgundy? Saint Eloi, nothing more nor less! The lady has become a gentleman. Do you hear that, Eulalie, after you are dead they will make a man of you!
[Note: If you don’t know why I’m pointing this out, take a look at the post on Martin and Martine, here. ]
The cure’s etymologies slip from St. Hilaire to Saint Iliers to Saint Helier to Saint Ylie to Sancta Eulalia to Saint Eloi–the saint of blacksmiths. To Eulalie. And once Eulalie is dead she becomes a man! This is hilarious, as if an inside ‘joke’ that in Combray, Martine stands beside Martine (both blacksmiths), but in Venice, there are two men atop the clocktower.
The question in my mind was this: if Proust knew first of the Moors in Venice, and then somehow found the Moors in Cambrai, was it possible that he ‘borrowed’ the name of Combray from Cambrai/ Cambray? Of course Illiers was always a model for the town of Combray. But maybe it wasn’t the model for the name Combray itself.
Not a popular opinion, I suspect. Nor this one about Saint Marcel. Still, I’m puttin’ it out there.