house of Bouillon, this lady had said to her:

"I think you know M. Swann very well; he is a great friend of my nephews,
the des Laumes."

My grandmother had returned from the call full of praise for the house,
which overlooked some gardens, and in which Mme. de Villeparisis had
advised her to rent a flat; and also for a repairing tailor and his
daughter, who kept a little shop in the courtyard, into which she had gone
to ask them to put a stitch in her skirt, which she had torn on the
staircase. My grandmother had found these people perfectly charming: the
girl, she said, was a jewel, and the tailor a most distinguished man, the
finest she had ever seen. For in her eyes distinction was a thing wholly
independent of social position. She was in ecstasies over some answer the
tailor had made, saying to Mamma:

"Sevigne would not have said it better!" and, by way of contrast, of a
nephew of Mme. de Villeparisis whom she had met at the house:

"My dear, he is so common!"

Now, the effect of that remark about Swann had been, not to raise him in
my great-aunt's estimation, but to lower Mme. de Villeparisis. It appeared
that the deference which, on my grandmother's authority, we owed to Mme.
de Villeparisis imposed on her the reciprocal obligation to do nothing
that would render her less worthy of our regard, and that she had failed
in her duty in becoming aware of Swann's existence and in allowing members
of her family to associate with him. "How should she know Swann? A lady
who, you always made out, was related to Marshal MacMahon!" This view of
Swann's social atmosphere which prevailed in my family seemed to be