Now, given the principles openly paraded not only by Oriane but by Mme de Villeparisis, namely that nobility does not count, that it is ridiculous to bother one's head about rank, that money doesn't bring happiness, that intellect, heart, talent are alone of importance, the Courvoisiers were justified in hoping that, as a result of the training she had received from the Marquise, Oriane would marry someone who was not in society, an artist, an ex-convict, a tramp, a free-thinker, that she would enter for good and all into the category of what the Courvoisiers called "ne'er-do-wells." They were all the more justified in this hope because, inasmuch as Mme de Villeparisis was at that time going through an awkward crisis from the social point of view (none of the few bright stars whom I was to meet in her drawing-room had as yet reappeared there), she professed an intense horror of the society which thus excluded her. Even when she spoke of her nephew the Prince de Guermantes, whom she did still see, she never ceased mocking him because he was so infatuated with his pedigree. But the moment it became a question of finding a husband for Oriane, it was no longer the principles publicly paraded by aunt and niece that had guided the operation; it was the mysterious and ubiquitous "family genie." As unerringly as if Mme de Villeparisis and Oriane had never spoke of anything but rent-rolls and pedigrees instead of literary merit and depth of character, and as if the Marquise, for the space of a few days, had been - as she would ultimately be - dead and in her coffin in the church at Combray, where each member of the family became simply a Guermantes, with a forfeiture of individuality and baptismal names attested on the voluminous black drapery of the pall by the single 'G' in purple surmounted by the ducal coronet, it was on the wealthiest and the most nobly born, on the most eligible bachelor of the Faubourg Saint-Germain, on the eldest son of the Duc de Guermantes, the Prince des Laumes, that the family genie had fixed the choice of the intellectual, the rebellious, the evangelical Mme de Villeparisis. And for a couple of hours, on the day of the wedding, Mme de Villeparisis received in her drawing-room all the noble persons whom she had been in the habit of deriding, whom she even derided with the few bourgeois intimates whom she had invited and on whom the Prince des Laumes promptly left cards, preparatory to "cutting the painter" in the following year. And then, making the Courvoisiers' cup of bitterness overflow, the same old maxims according to which intellect and talent were the sole claims to social pre-eminence began once more to be trotted out in the household of the Princesse des Laumes immediately after the marriage. And in this respect, be it said in passing, the point of view which Saint-Loup upheld when he lived with Rachel, frequented the friends of Rachel, would have liked to marry Rachel, entailed - whatever the horror that it inspired in the family - less falsehood thatn that of the Guermantes young ladies in general, extolling the intellect, barely allowing the possibility that anyone could question the equality of mankind, all of which led, when it came to the point, to the same result as if they had professed the opposite principles, that is to say that he was treading in evil ways. Certainly from the moral standpoint Rachel was not altogether satisfactory. But it is by no means certain that, if she had been no more virtuous but a duchess or the heiress to many millions, Mme de Marsantes would not have been in favour of the match.
Marcel Proust, The Guermantes Way, pp. 466-467
Proust continues to reflect upon the Guermantes, and the larger issue of class and privilege. As we've discussed, it's not as if Marcel's thoughts and actions aren't dictated by privilege - you only have to think back to our earlier discussion of him feeling up the serving girl at the tavern and telling her to feel in his pocket for coins (he just needed to pop a few Tic Tacs and he'd be Donald Trump). In this particular passage he's reflecting upon the peculiar, at least on the surface, habit of the aristocracy to play at an appreciation of intellect. The hope was that "Oriane would marry someone who was not in society, an artist, an ex-convict, a tramp, a free-thinker, that she would enter for good and all into the category of what the Courvoisiers called 'ne'er-do-wells.'" Of course, in the end that is not what happens, and the choice was made by the "family genie" on some incestuous marriage to someone of the appropriate privilege. You don't have to reach the level of the super rich to see the same thing. My family played much the same game, made all the more hurried and urgent because of our deep inner shame of our yellow clay, hillbilly Hoosier roots. We've always talked a good game in regards to social issues, in the end we all (with the exception of the black sheep socialist Muslim) end up watching Fox News and voting a straight Republican ticket.
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