The renowned French author Marcel Proust, author of “In Search of Lost Time”, served in the 76th Infantry Regiment of the French army. This service was as a volunteer "conditional conscript" for one year, from 1889 to 1890.
One of his superiors was Captain Charles Colonna Walewski , the grandson of Emperor Napoléon. Captain Walewski would serve as a model for Marcel Proust for his character prince of Borodino in his story "In Search of Lost Time".
Walewski is also mentioned in his biography Marcel Proust: A Life by WILLIAM C. CARTER p.105-106
“Another of Marcel's superiors was company commander Captain Walewski, otherwise known as Comte Charles Colonna-Walewski, the grandson of France's most famous military genius: Napoléon Bonaparte. Walewski's father, Alexandre-Florian-Joseph Colonna, Comte Walewski, came into the world as the illegitimate son of Napoleon and his Polish lover Marie Laczynska (Walewska).
Marcel and his fellow cadets believed they saw in Captain Walewski a strong resemblance to his illustrious grandfather. Like Cholet, the count was a member of the Jockey Club, of which his Father had been one of the founders. The club had been created to restore French horse breeding, after the decimation suffered during the Napoleonic Wars, to its former superior level.' Proust and his fellow cadets admired Walewski's "gentle-ness and his politeness as a commanding officer," traits his grandfather Bonaparte might not have considered the most important for a military officer.
Marcel closely observed these two officers, each representing one of France's opposing political and historical forces: the ancient nobility, epitomized by Cholet, and the more recent nobility of the Empire represented by Walewski.”
