Proust Moment, May 13, 2003

Gentle Francoise

We got a glance of Francoise in "Overture," when Marcel entrusted her with his written plea to Mamma. We get a better picture here of this loyal family servant, whose attitude toward her role in life is a good deal like that of Stevens the butler in Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day. She intuitively accepts the social food chain, and is more than happy to serve the "upper classes" -- "which raised to the most honourable quarter of her heart the hope of receiving her due reward." The family, likewise, regards her with loving condescension; Marcel recalls how as a small boy, when Francoise was in the employ of his great-aunt, he was selected to bestow on Francoise the family's New Year's Day boon of a five-franc piece.

But there is, also, genuine feeling on the part of the family toward Francoise. When Mamma expreses tender concern regarding the dicey marriage of Francoise's daughter, Francoise is overcome with emotion, as Mamma is "the first person who had given her the pleasure of feeling that her peasant existence, with its simple joys and sorrows, might offer some interest, might be a source of grief or pleasure to some one other than herself."

Is this a kindly, genteel form of snobbery? Probably. But it's not the cruel type we see in the nouveau-riche vulgarity of the Verdurins, or the upper-class pretensions of the Guermantes circle. And while Francoise may be only a servant, she's no fool: service, good service, commands respect and, within limits, power.

"My aunt resigned herself to doing without Francoise to some extent during our visits, knowing how much my mother appreciated the services of so active and intelligent a maid, one who looked as smart at five o'clock in the morning in her kitchen, under a cap whose stiff and dazzling frills seemed to be made of porcelain, as when dressed for churchgoing; who did everything in the right way, who toiled like a horse, whether she was well or ill, but without noise, without the appearance of doing anything; the only one of my aunt's maids who when Mamma asked for hot water or black coffee would bring them actually boiling; she was one of those servants who in a household seem least satisfactory, at first, to a stranger, doubtless because they take no pains to make a conquest of him and shew him no special attention, knowing very well that they have no real need of him, that he will cease to be invited to the house sooner than they will be dismissed from it; who, on the other hand, cling with most fidelity to those masters and mistresses who have tested and proved their real capacity, and do not look for that superficial responsiveness, that slavish affability, which may impress a stranger favourably, but often conceals an utter barrenness of spirit in which no amount of training can produce the least trace of individuality."

--"Combray," Swann's Way