Duke of Germany

Bazin, XII Duke of Germany and XVII Prince of Kondom ^[2] , the eldest son of XI Duke of Germany, until the death of his father - Prince de Lom ^{[3] [4]} ; Oriana's husband and cousin ^{[5] [4]} , the elder brother of Baron de Charles ^{[6] [7]} , the cousin of the Prince of Germany, the nephew of the Marquise de Vilparisi and the uncle of the Marquise de Saint-Loup ^{[8] [9]} . The owner of a family castle in the vicinity of Combra and a large mansion in the Saint-Germain suburb, part of the premises of which are rented out to tenants and tenants. The Duke of Germany had a married son ^[10] and a daughter, whom the nephew of Saint-Loup believed to marry in the family of the Marquis de Govejo, but he assured the Storyteller that “this is just one of the secular gossip” ^{[11] [12 ] ]} . In the finale of “Searches”, at a reception with the Prince of Germany (in 1919 or 1920), the duke is 83 years old ^[13] .

Back in the days when Bazin was still Prince de Lom, he was a friend of Charles Swan , who, having received an anonymous letter about Odette ’s love affairs and considering Bazin among its possible authors, thought that he was “morally clean and straightforward ... a cold man by nature but not capable of either meanness or deed ” ^[14] . In those same years , the Storyteller’s grandmother , once meeting Bazin de Lom with her friend Marquise de Villeparisi, spoke of him at home: “Ah, daughter, how ordinary he is!” ^[15] . Many years later, when the Storyteller's family settled (as tenants) in the outbuilding of the Germans mansion, Marcel himself already describes the Duke of Germany:

“He is fabulously rich and living in a world where less and less rich, accustomed to the idea that he is the owner of a huge fortune, he combined the vanity of an important gentleman and the vanity of a man of money, but the refined upbringing received by the master, set limits to the vanity of money person. Nevertheless, when he looked at him, it became clear that his success in women, which cost his wife such suffering, was owed not only to his name and condition - he was still very beautiful, and his profile with his purity, boldness of outlines resembled that of the Greek god " ^[16] .

Bazin was a wonderful assistant to his wife "in terms of maintaining complete order in her salon (and maintaining Oriana's reputation as a witty woman, because her wit was the main bait") ^[17] . But the duke did not love her, “like all the“ know-it-alls ”, he could not stand when they interrupted him, he was rude to his wife at home.” In addition, he was extremely loving, and all his mistresses got access to his wife’s elite salon ^[18] . However, unlike Oriana, whose image loses its attractiveness and becomes smaller as the story of the “Search” unfolds, the Duke of Germany is “whole nature, clearly limited by the scope of his title, position in the world, his pleasures, money and selfishness. He does not pretend that he professes some other morality that is different from that which he needs in order to feel at ease ” ^[19] .

The undisguised egoism of the Duke of Germany sometimes turns him into a comic character. These are the ridiculous tricks he resorted to in order to protect himself from family mourning for the sake of attending a costume ball. When Bazin, who is about to go to the ball, is suddenly informed that his cousin Amagnen d'Hosmond may die at any time and death, the duke finds a way to prevent trouble: his plan is to have time to send the news before the death of a relative, and therefore, before forced mourning ^[20] . But at the last moment, eminent relatives personally inform him of the death of d'Osmont. The duke was taken aback, but “immediately took control of himself and told the relatives a phrase that he made clear about his decision not to deprive himself of pleasure and at the same time proved that he did not understand the meaning of some words:“ Died? No, it’s exaggerated, it’s exaggerated! “” ^[21] .

By the finale of the “Quest”, the duke, “having long ago humbled his passions because of his old age, but still strong,” fell in love with Odette and “this connection has become so widespread that the old man, trying in this last love to imitate his own manners of many years ago , made his mistress almost his captive ” ^[22] . In the eyes of the Storyteller, who met him at a reception at the Prince of Germans, the 83-year-old duke appears as a figure, perhaps the most significant among all those present: “Now it was just a wreck, but a magnificent wreck, and maybe not just a wreck, but something beautifully romantic - this is what a rock looks like in a storm. Cruelly overwhelmed by the waves of suffering, anger, the approaching line of a fatal tide, his face, pitted and nostril like a stone block, still did not lose its style, its sophistication, which I always admired; it was exuded, like those beautiful antique heads, damaged by time, with which we nevertheless proudly decorate our cabinets ” ^[23] .

The image of the Duke of Germany is anticipated in the characteristic features of the Duke de Reveyon (after real-life dukes) from Proust's early unfinished novel, Jacques Santoy ^{[24] [25]} .

• Jacques Boudet - “ Swan 's Love ” by Volker Schlöndorf (1984).
• Jean-Claude Jay - “ Found Time ” by Raoul Ruiz (1999).
• Bernard Farsi - “ In Search of Lost Time ” by Nina Kompaneyets (2011).

• List of characters in the cycle of novels “In Search of Lost Time”

• I - Proust M. Towards Svan / per. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova . - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 540 p.
• II - Proust M. Under the canopy of girls in bloom / trans. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 607 p.
• III - Proust M. At the Germans / trans. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 665 p.
• IV - Proust M. Sodom and Gomorrah / trans. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 671 p.
• V - Proust M. Captive / per. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 1999 .-- 527 p.
• VI - Proust M. Runaway / per. with fr. N. M. Lyubimova (app. L. M. Tsyvyan ). - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2000 .-- 391 p.
• VII - Proust M. Found time / per. with fr. A.N. Smirnova. - St. Petersburg: Amphora, 2001 .-- 382 p.

• Grechanaya E.P. Notes // Proust M. Young Proust in letters (1885-1907) / comp. A. D. Mikhailov. - St. Petersburg .: Limbus Press, 2019 .-- 576 p. - 1,500 copies
• Moriak Claude . Proust / Introductory article by A. D. Mikhailov ; per. fr. N. Buntman, A. Paradise. - M: Publishing house Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 1999. - 288 p. - ("Literary Biographies"). - ISBN 5-86712-040-6 .
• Morois Andre . Finding Marcel Proust / per. with fr. D. Efimova. - St. Petersburg .: Limbus Press, 2000 .-- 382 p.
• Revel J.-F. About Proust: Reflecting on the cycle “In Search of Lost Time” / Per. with fr. G. R. Singer. - M .: ZNAK — SP, 1995 .-- 192 p. - 5,000 copies. - ISBN 5-88445-002-8 .
• Daudet Ch. Duc Basin de Guermantes // Répertoire des personnages de "À la recherche du temps perdu" . - Paris: Gallimard, 1927. - P. 99-103.
• Erman M. Guermantes (Basin, duc de) // Bottins proustiens. Personnages et lieux dans “À la recherche du temps perdu”. - Paris: Gallimard, 2016 .-- P. 70-71.

• Proust Travel Guide: Duke of Germany