THE GARDEN OF ILLIERS 17
perfectly well, and only needed 'a brisk walk in the sunshine or a
good red beefsteak', or distressed her by thinking she was really
as ill as she said she was. Only two visitors were still welcome;
one of them was the parish priest, Abbe, afterwards Canon
Joseph Marquis, who took Marcel through his first steps in Latin
and taught him the names of all the flowers in his garden. But
even he exhausted the poor lady with his passion for the etymo-
logy of place-names, which so enthralled her nephew, or in-
furiated her by recommending the view from the tower of Saint-
Jacques-as if she conld ever climb those ninety-seven steps! In
Du Cote de che{ Swann he is said 'to be thinking of writing a book
on the parish of Combray'l; and towards the end of his life, in
1')07, he did indeed publish the result of his labours, in a large
and learned volume called, simply, faiers, which traces the
history of the little town from prehistoric times to the building
in the 1880s of the new boys' schooP But Aunt Elisabem's most
welcome visitor, who never tired her like me cure, who always
pleased her by believing mat she was .ill and did not frighten her
by minking she might die, was me person who in A la RecherChe
is called Eulalie. She lived as servant-companion wim me
widowed Virginie Proust in me Place du Marche, and came every
Sunday afternoon, in her nun-like black mantle and white coif,
wim news of me morning's mass and me week's gossip; and she
left, to me intense disapproval of me jealous Ernestine, wim a
small gold coin discreetly palmed and pocketed.
Ernestine Gallou, Aunt Elisabem's housekeeper, must have
been still a young woman in Marcel's childhood, for in me early
1930S she was still alive, 'a little old lady, bowed and dwarfed wim
age, wim a pale wrinkled face and fine grey eyes'. She could do
noming against me hated 'Eulalie', but in everything else she was
me tyrant of me household. Her devotion to her mistress was
profound, but years of familiarity had worn away her deference.
The visitors from Paris, however, had never lost meir prestige,
and to mem she was as obliging as she was severe to poor Aunt
1 I, 103- It is often supposed that the name of the cure at Combray (who in fact
remains nameless) is Abbe Perdreau; but Abbe Perdreau, who is only
mentioned once (I, 57), when Aunt Leonie sees his niece from her window,
L, a different person. A namesake of his was cure of Saint-Jacques at Illiers
from 1777 to 179'.