Aunt Leonia's house

The ancestors of Marcel Proust settled in Ilya ^[1] from the 16th century, owned land in its environs, and traded. His father Adrian Proust was born here; here lived and the sister of her father Elizabeth (1828-1886), who married a local resident Jules Amiot ( fr. Jules Amiot , 1816-1912) ^[2] . Jules Amyot was a major businessman, he owned a fashion store ^[3] . The house of spouses was not far from the main square (where the grocery store of Grandfather Proust, the father of Adrian and Elizabeth) was located, on the street of the Holy Spirit ^[2] . The building, preserved to this day, is a typical bourgeois house of the XIX century ^[4] .

At the age of six to nine, Marcel spent Easter and summer holidays with Aunt Elizabeth ^[5] . Later, these trips stopped due to asthma attacks, and Ilya turned into a lost paradise for a child. The last time Marcel visited Ilya at the age of fifteen, when his aunt was no longer alive ^[5] . However, it was she, according to biographer Proust Andre Morois , "after many spells, she would later turn for her nephew, and for the whole world, into Aunt Leonia" ^[3] .

The house of Aunt Leonia has been repeatedly mentioned and described in detail in the first book of the cycle of novels “In Search of Lost Time” - “ Towards Svan ”. The main character, or Narrator , is visiting his cousin Aunt Leonia in Combra . The house where she lives, located in the center of the city and surrounded by a garden, belongs to the cousin of the Storyteller, sister of his grandfather Amedea ^{[6] [5]} . Her daughter - Aunt Leonia - constantly lives in Combra and is the Storyteller’s cousin ^[5] . After the death of her husband, she does not leave the house and only from the windows observes the life of the town:

It is Aunt Leonia who treats the young hero with made-up cakes, the taste of which, after years, will remind him of his childhood in Combra and will serve as an impetus for the deployment of a whole bundle of memories:

The house and garden in Combra, described in the novel, are not completely similar to their real prototype. Their image may have been partly inspired by the home of Louis Weil (Marcel’s maternal grandfather) in the Paris suburb of , where the future writer was born and subsequently regularly visited with his parents ^{[9] [10]} . The same applies to Aunt Leonia herself: her prototype, Aunt Elizabeth, was not a widow at the time described by Proust, and her lifestyle was probably very different from that depicted by the writer ^[2] .

In 1954, Proust's cousin, Germain Amiot ( fr. Germaine Amiot ), acquired the house . ^[11] Thanks to the gifts of the Proust family members, a museum was created in the house that owns a large collection of furniture, household items, photographs, paintings, letters and documents belonging to the writer ^{[11] [12]} . The official opening took place in 1971, in honor of the centennial of Proust ^[11] . In 1976, shortly before his death, Germain Amyot transferred the house to the Society of Friends of Marcel Proust ( Fr. Société des Amis de Marcel Proust ) ^[11] . Subsequently, Odile Zhevodan-Albaret ( fr. Odile Gévaudan-Albaret ), daughter of Proust's maid , donated furniture to the museum from Proust’s last apartment on Osman Boulevard, making it possible to open new rooms ^[12] .

Currently, the museum’s premises include a kitchen, dining room, little Marseille’s bedroom, Aunt Leonia’s room, Uncle Jules ’“ Oriental Salon ”, a room showing photographs of Nadar representing the Paris high society of the Proust era and some prototypes of Proust characters, as well as a room where various objects and documents belonging to Proust ^{[12] [13]} . On the whole, the museum recreates at the same time the authentic atmosphere of Elizabeth Amio's house and the rooms of the house of Aunt Leonia described in the “Search” ^{[13] [14]} .

Since 1961, the house has the status of a historical monument . About four to five thousand people visit the museum annually ^[15] . Meetings of the Proust Friends of the Society created in 1947 are also regularly held here, whose goal is to unite readers of Proust and popularize his work ^[16] .

• Bayevskaya E.V. Notes // Towards Swann / trans. with fr. E. Baevskoy. - M .: Foreigner, ABC-Atticus, 2013 .-- S. 439-478.
• Mikhailov A.D. Poetics of Proust / T. M. Nikolaev . - M .: Languages ​​of Slavic culture, 2012 .-- 504 p.
• Morois A. In Search of Marcel Proust. - SPb. : Limbus-Press, 2000 .-- 382 p.
• Proust M. Towards Svan / Per. N. M. Lyubimova . - SPb. : Amphora, 1999 .-- 540 s.
• Subbotina G.A. Marcel Proust. - Young Guard , 2016 .-- 317 p. - (The life of wonderful people ). - ISBN 978-5-235-03866-0 .
• Erman M. Maison de tante Léonie // Bottins proustiens. Personnages et lieux dans “À la recherche du temps perdu”. - Paris: Gallimard, 2016 .-- P. 194-195.

• Musée Marcel Proust - maison de tante Léonie (Fr.) . Musées de la région Center . Date of treatment August 2, 2019.
• Maison de tante Léonie (Fr.) . Société des Amis de Marcel Proust. Date of treatment August 2, 2019.
• Katia Giangermi. Descriptif de la visite des pièces principales (Fr.) . Société des Amis de Marcel Proust. Date of treatment August 2, 2019.
• Guillemette Faure. A Illiers-Combray, du côté de chez Proust (French) . Le Monde (25 mai 2019). Date of treatment August 2, 2019.
• Inauguration de la plaque "Maison des Illustres" du Musée Marcel Proust - Maison de Tante Léonie (Fr.) . Ministère de la Culture (2012). Date of treatment August 2, 2019.