Illiers-Combray () is a
commune in the
Eure-et-Loir department
Department may refer to:
* Departmentalization, division of a larger organization into parts with specific responsibility
Government and military
*Department (administrative division), a geographical and administrative division within a country, ...
in north central
France.
Population
Literature
''Combray'' was the writer
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel ''In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous Eng ...
's name for the village of Illiers (near the Cathedral town of
Chartres
Chartres () is the prefecture of the Eure-et-Loir department in the Centre-Val de Loire region in France. It is located about southwest of Paris. At the 2019 census, there were 170,763 inhabitants in the metropolitan area of Chartres (as d ...
), vividly depicted by him in the opening chapters of his vast semi-autobiographical novel ''
In Search of Lost Time
''In Search of Lost Time'' (french: À la recherche du temps perdu), first translated into English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'', and sometimes referred to in French as ''La Recherche'' (''The Search''), is a novel in seven volumes by French ...
''.
The home of Proust's "Aunt Léonie" in the heart of the village, where he spent much of his childhood, has been transformed into a museum to the writer's memory. It provides visitors with a delightful view of 19th-century provincial life as well as of the many Proustian mementos on display.
It should be added that Proust scholars have recently claimed his descriptions of "Combray" owe as much to the author's stays in his uncle's home in
Auteuil Auteuil may refer to:
Places
* Auteuil, Oise, a commune in France
* Auteuil, Paris, a neighborhood of Paris
** Auteuil, Seine, the former commune which was on the outskirts of Paris
* Auteuil, Quebec, a former city that is now a district within ...
, near
Paris, as to Illiers-Combray.
As a tribute to Proust's literary masterpiece, the people of Illiers decided, in 1971, to change the town's name to ''Illiers-Combray'', on the occasion of the centenary of the author's birth.
Twinning
The village is
twinned
Twinning (making a twin of) may refer to:
* In biology and agriculture, producing two offspring (i.e., twins) at a time, or having a tendency to do so;
* Twin towns and sister cities, towns and cities involved in town twinning
* Twinning inst ...
with
Coniston, Cumbria, the home of
John Ruskin.
Ruskin's work was a source of inspiration to Proust.
See also
*
Communes of the Eure-et-Loir department
References
Communes of Eure-et-Loir
In Search of Lost Time
Orléanais
{{EureLoir-geo-stub