List of Characters
This list is adapted from "A Guide to Proust" found in the Modern Library edition of Time Regained.
I acknowledge a debt to Terence Kilmartin, D.J. Enright, and the editors of that edition. Who's Who in Proust is another resource and includes a Guermantes family tree. Spoiler Warning: some of the descriptions below include details revealed late in novel.


  • Mama: see Osmond, Amanien, Marquis d'
  • Mamma: Narrator's mother; increasingly resembles her mother
  • Manager of the Grand Hotel, Balbec: cocommitsany and various malapropisms
  • Manchester, Consuelo, Duchess of: takes the Duchesse de Guermantes shopping in London
  • "Marcel": the common desigation for the novel's Narrator, this name appears twice in the narrative. In The Captive the Narrator states that if Albertine were to call him by the name of the author of this book, she would call him "Marcel." She later calls him "Marcel" without the conditional.
  • Marie-Aynard: see Marsantes, Comtesse de
  • Marie-Gilbert or Marie-Hedwige: see Guermantes, Princesse Marie de
  • Marguerite: Françoise's daughter; adopts a Parisian slang and disdainfully refers to Combray as "the back of beyond"
  • "Marquise": the Keeper of the water-closets on the Champs-Elysées
  • Marsantes, Comte or Marquis de: Saint-Loup's father; president of the Jockey Club for ten years; killed in the war of 1870-71.
  • Marsantes, Comtesse de (Marie-Aynard): widow of the above, Saint-Loup's mother and sister of the Duc de Guermantes and Charlus
  • Mathilde, Princesse, daughter of Jérôme Bonaparte (1820-1904): the Narrator meets her with the Swanns in the Bois de Boulogne
  • Maurice: one of the "gigolos" in Jupien's brothel
  • Méline, Jules, rench Statesman (1838-1925): Prime Minister during the Dreyfus Case; friend of the Narrator's father
  • Mémé: Charlus' nickname (Palamède)
  • Molé, Comtesse: mysteriously, the object of Charlus' rancour, but defends him against the Verdurins during the War
  • Monk: brother-in-law of the Narrator's grandmother; surreptitiously observes the Narrator while praying by her death-bed
  • Monserfeuil, General de: the Duchesse de Guermantes refuses to speak to him on behalf of Saint-Loup (see Beauserfeuil)
  • Monteriender, Comtesse de: at Mme de Sainte-Euverte's makes an absurd remark about Vinteuil's sonata: "It's astonishing! I've never seen anything to beat it . . . since table turning!"
  • Montmorency-Luxembourg, Duchesse de: feels a great deal kindlier about the Duchesse de Guermantes than the Duchesse about her
  • Montpeyroux, Comtesse de: sister of the Vicomtesse de Vélude; nicknamed "Petite" because of her stoutness
  • Moreau, A.J.: friend and colleague of the Narrator's father
  • Morel, Charles: violinist, son of Uncle Adolphe's valet
  • Morienval, Baronne de: at the Opéra, compared unfavorably to the Princesse and the Duchesse de Guermantes
  • Mortemart, Duchesse de: converses with Charlus at the Verdurin's
  • Musician (eminent), friend of Ski's, invited to La Raspelière
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Mark Calkins © 2007
Page last updated: May 25, 2005