M. de Crécy that I learned that it was a very great family indeed, and a genuine branch transplanted to France of the English family which bears the title of Crecy. When I learned that he was a true Crécy, I told him that one of Mme. de Guermantes’s nieces had married an American named Charles Crecy, and said that I did not suppose there was any connection between them. “None,” he said. “Any more than⁠—not, of course, that my family is so distinguished⁠—heaps of Americans who call themselves Montgomery, Berry, Chandos or Capel have with the families of Pembroke, Buckingham or Essex, or with the Duc de Berry.” I thought more than once of telling him, as a joke, that I knew Mme. Swann, who as a courtesan had been known at one time by the name Odette de Crécy; but even if the Duc d’Alençon had shown no resentment when people mentioned in front of him Émilienne d’Alençon, I did not feel that I was on sufficiently intimate terms with M.