The Marquis de Saint-Loup-en-Bray

While vacationing at the seaside resort of Balbec with his grandmother, M. makes friends with Robert Saint-Loup who is close to his own age. Saint-Loup is on leave from the army and is in Balbec visiting his great-aunt, Mme de Villeparisis.

M. is foretold of Saint-Loup's arrival, and he is so lonely he fantasizes about it. Saint-Loup and M. become best friends.

"It was promptly settled between us that he and I were going to be great friends forever, and he would say 'our friendship' as though he were speaking of some important and delightful thing which had an existence independent of ourselves, and which he soon called...the great joy of his life."

Robert Saint-Loup becomes a central character in the novel. Mme de Villeparisis and Saint-Loup are residents of the Faubourg Saint Germain neighborhood, are the epitome of society, and are related to the Guermantes, the highest aristocratic bloodline in France.

M. has his foot in the door of the great society he has admired since his youth in Combray.