MARCEL PROUST
Her husband belonged to a Belgian banking family naturalised
in France, whose nobility, like the Caraman-Chimays' princedom,
dated only from the Restoration. His great-aunt Cordelia
Greffulhe, wife of the Marechal de Castellane, had been a mistress
of Chateaubriand; and his father Charles Greffulhe, in collabora-
tion with Charles Laffitte (a relative of Baron Doasan), was one
of the original founders of the Jockey Club. Despite the com-
parative newness of his title, Comte Greffulhe had a leading
position in society, and was the chief original of the Duc de
Guermantes.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered man, with a yellow beard and
an air of majesty and suppressed rage, which made Blanche com-
pare him to a king in a pack of cards, while others likened him to
Jove the Thunderer.' "He displaces more air than any ordinary
mortal," said Barres. His lordly affability was never more
strikingly displayed than when he made the round of his electors,
presenting them according to social position with a gold watch
or a brace of pheasants from his chateau at Boisboudran. For
many years he represented Melun in the Chamber of Deputies;
similarly, the Duc de Guermantes was the member for Meseglise.
Like the Duc, Comte Greffulhe was a tyrannical and unfaithful
husband, overfond of the society of persons whom the countess
disdainfully called 'the little ladies who make such good
mattresses'. Once, many years later, an imprudent guest who felt
sure that the still-dazzling Mme GreffuIhe must be the mistress,
and therefore mistook the ugly lady at the far end of the room for
the wife, remarked feelingly to the countess: "Ah, Madame, now
I've seen you, how I do sympathise with the count!" On another
occasion Comte Greffulhe sent his valet to arrange a rendezvous
with the beautiful actress MIle Marsy. "Well, did you see her?"
"Yes, Monsieur Ie Comte, she was sitting with the Prince de
Sagan, while he had a foothath." "It's too bad," cried the out-
raged nobleman, in the words of the Duc de Guermantes com-
plaining of Swann's Dreyfusism, "why, the man dines with usl"
But his infidelities did not prevent him being jealous, though
entirely without cause; and the brevity of his wife's appearances
in society, which was often ascribed to hauteur, was in fact due
to his insistence on her being home by eleven-thirty. He did not
1 The Narrator frequendy borrows this comparison for the Duc (e.g. IT,
,84, 68); lIT, 4', 10'0).