Guermantes is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in north-central France. It is located in the Val de Bussy sector of Marne-la-Vallée. As of 2012, its population was 1,191. Writer Marcel Proust adopted its name for the origin of the Guermantes family in À la recherche du temps perdu. Proust Scholar Joshua Landy points out that the only reason Proust "used it in his novel is that no living members of the family remained.”