Last modified: 2005-04-09 by ivan sache
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![[CYC burgee]](../images/f/fr-14~cb.gif)
by Ivan Sache
Cabourg (3,500 inhabitants) is a sea resort located on the Normand
Côte Fleurie. Cabourg is separated from the neighbouring city of Dives-sur-Mer by the river Dives. William the Bastard set up the
expedition which made of him William the Conqueror in the ancient port
of Dives.
Cabourg is of much more recent origin. The city developed in the XIXth
century from a round square located behind the casino and the Grand
Hôtel. The main streets fan out from the sqaure and are linked by
semi-circular secondary streets. Cabourg has a long promenade, built
along the sand beach. Like in Trouville and Houlgate, the promenade is
bordered by a line of villas, whose architectural value is, however, lower
than in Trouville.
The Grand Hôtel, built on the promenade, is the main building of
Cabourg. It was immortalized by Marcel Proust as the Grand Hôtel of
Balbec, an imaginary city very similar to Cabourg.
Proust went to
Cabourg every summer from 1907 to 1914, where he met a colourful jet-set
and gambled a lot. Several elements of these stays were reused in the
second part of A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur, which is the second
section of A la recherche du temps perdu, published in 1918.The second part of A l'ombre des jeunes filles en fleur (Noms de
pays: le pays) describes the first stay of the narrateur (who is a kind
of double of the author, since the novel is entirely written in the
first person, starting with the enigmatic Longtemps je me suis couché
de bonne heure) in Balbec with his grandmother. During this stay, the
narrator met important characters such as madame de Villeparisis and his
nephew Robert de Saint-Loup, baron Palamède de Charlus, the painter
Elstir and of course the "blossoming young girls". This section of the
novel is probably the most poetic one, including impressionist
descriptions of the sea shore and the pleasant agitation of the narrator
when he met the young girls. It also includes a very ironic description
of the manners of the upper society of the end of the XIXth - beginning
of the XXth century during the summer season on the Normand coast.
The second and last stay