# Duchesse de Guermantes — In Search of Lost Time character guide

> Duchesse de Guermantes in In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Oriane, Mme. de Guermantes, the Duchesse de Guermantes

**First appearance:** 0013-volume-iii-the-guermantes-way

## Snapshot

The brilliant Duchesse Oriane, whose name once glowed like a cathedral in the boy's imagination, proves a witty, elusive woman of the faubourg.

## Who they are

For the young narrator, Guermantes is a legendary landscape; for the young man in Paris, it becomes a drawing-room he aches to enter, presided over by a woman whose charm is inseparable from her cruelty of wit. Oriane dazzles and withholds, her kindnesses as arbitrary as her snubs, and her marriage to the Duc anchors the novel's portrait of aristocratic power. She matters because the narrator's pursuit of her teaches him that reality always disappoints the name, and that social ambition is another form of the same impossible desire.

## In the story

### [The Guermantes Way](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/chapters/volume-iii-the-guermantes-way)

Oriane de Guermantes is the object of the narrator's fascination, embodying the allure and superficiality of the aristocracy.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/chapters/part-i-i)

Brilliant niece who visits Mme. de Villeparisis; her smile at the Opéra-Comique becomes a focus of the narrator's romantic imagination.

### [II](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/chapters/part-ii-ii)

Her mind is described as pure but limited, excluding the narrator's thoughts; she embodies a rustic survival from Guermantes.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/chapters/part-i-i)

Engages with the narrator, dismisses his interest in Baroness Putbus, and invites him to a ball; expresses regret at his early departure.

### [II: Mademoiselle de Forcheville](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/chapters/ii-mademoiselle-de-forcheville)

The narrator visits her drawing-room, where he meets Mlle. de Forcheville. She had previously refused to meet Gilberte after Swann's marriage.

### [Endnotes](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/chapters/endnotes)

Mentioned for forgetting she already told a story about the Prince de Léon.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/characters/madame_de_guermantes
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/in_search_of_lost_time_se/characters