Читать книгу Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z - Anatole Cerfberr - Страница 8

Table of Contents

BABYLAS, groom or "tiger" of Amedee de Soulas, in 1834, at Besancon. Was fourteen years old at this time. The son of one of his master's tenants. He earned thirty-six francs a month by his position to support himself, but he was neat and skillful. [Albert Savarus.]

BAPTISTE, valet de chambre to the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu in 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BARBANCHU, Bohemian with a cocked hat, who was called into Vefour's by some journalists who breakfasted there at the expense of Jerome Thuillier, in 1840, and invited by them to "sponge" off of this urbane man, which he did. [The Middle Classes.]

BARBANTI (The), a Corsican family who brought about the reconciliation of the Piombos and the Portas in 1800. [The Vendetta.]

BARBET, a dynasty of second-hand book-dealers in Paris under the Restoration and Louis Philippe. They were Normans. In 1821 and the years following, one of them ran a little shop on the quay des Grands-Augustins, and purchased Lousteau's books. In 1836, a Barbet, partner in a book-shop with Metivier and Morand, owned a wretched house on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, where dwelt the Baron Bourlac with his daughter and grandson. In 1840 the Barbets had become regular usurers dealing in credits with the firm of Cerizet and Company. The same year a Barbet occupied, in a house belonging to Jerome Thuillier, rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer (now rue Royal-Collard), a room on the first flight up and a shop on the ground floor. He was then a "publisher's shark." Barbet junior, a nephew of the foregoing, and editor in the alley des Panoramas, placed on the market at this time a brochure composed by Th. de la Peyrade but signed by Thuillier and having the title "Capital and Taxes." [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Man of Business. The Seamy Side of History. The Middle Classes.]

BARBETTE, wife of the great Cibot, known as Galope-Chopine. (See Cibot, Barbette.) [Les Chouans.]

BARCHOU DE PENHOEN (Auguste-Theodore-Hilaire), born at Morlaix (Finistere), April 28, 1801, died at Saint-Germain-en-Laye, July 29, 1855. A school-mate of Balzac, Jules Dufaure and Louis Lambert, and his neighbors in the college dormitory of Vendome in 1811. Later he was an officer, then a writer of transcendental philosophy, a translator of Fichte, a friend and interpreter of Ballanche. In 1849 he was elected, by his fellow-citizens of Finistere, to the Legislative Assembly where he represented the Legitimists and the Catholics. He protested against the coup d'etat of December 2, 1851 (See "The Story of a Crime," by Victor Hugo). When a child he came under the influence of Pyrrhonism. He once gainsaid the talent of Louis Lambert, his Vendome school-mate. [Louis Lambert.]

BARGETON (De), born between 1761 and 1763. Great-grandson of an Alderman of Bordeau named Mirault, ennobled during the reign of Louis XIII., and whose son, under Louis XIV., now Mirault de Bargeton, was an officer of the Guards de la Porte. He owned a house at Angouleme, in the rue du Minage, where he lived with his wife, Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, to whom he was entirely obedient. On her account, and at her instigation, he fought with one of the habitues of his salon, Stanislas de Chandour, who had circulated in the town a slander on Mme. de Bargeton. Bargeton lodged a bullet in his opponent's neck. He had for a second his father-in-law, M. de Negrepelisse. Following this, M. de Bargeton retired into his estate at Escarbas, near Barbezieux, while his wife, as a result of the duel left Angouleme for Paris. M. de Bargeton had been of good physique, but "injured by youthful excesses." He was commonplace, but a great gourmand. He died of indigestion towards the close of 1821. [Lost Illusions.]

BARGETON (Madame de), nee Marie-Louise-Anais Negrepelisse, wife of the foregoing. Left a widow, she married again, this time the Baron Sixte du Chatelet. (See that name.)

BARILLAUD, known by Frederic Alain whose suspicion he aroused with regard to Monegod. [The Seamy Side of History.]

BARIMORE (Lady), daughter of Lord Dudley, and apparently the wife of Lord Barimore, although it is a disputed question. Just after 1830, she helped receive at a function of Mlle. des Touches, rue de la Chaussee-d'Antin, where Marsay told about his first love affair. [Another Study of Woman.]

BARKER (William), one of Vautrin's "incarnations." In 1824 or 1825, under this assumed name, he posed as one of the creditors of M. d'Estourny, making him endorse some notes of Cerizet's, the partner of this M. d'Estourny. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BARNHEIM, family in good standing at Bade. On the maternal side, the family of Mme. du Ronceret, nee Schiltz, alias Schontz. [Beatrix.]

BARNIOL, Phellion's son-in-law. Head of an academy (in 1840), rue Saint-Hyacinthe-Saint-Michel (now, rue Le Goff and rue Malebrache). A rather influential man in the Faubourg Saint-Jacques. Visited the salon of Thuillier. [The Middle Classes.]

BARNIOL (Madame), nee Phellion, wife of the preceding. She had been under-governess in the boarding school of the Mlles. Lagrave, rue Notre-Dame des Champs. [The Middle Classes.]

BARRY (John), a young English huntsman, well known in the district whence the Prince of Loudon brought him to employ him at his own home. He was with this great lord in 1829, 1830. [Modeste Mignon.]

BARTAS (Adrien de), of Angouleme. In 1821, he and his wife were very devoted callers at the Bargetons. M. de Bartas gave himself up entirely to music, talking about this subject incessantly, and courting invitations to sing with his heavy bass voice. He posed as the lover of Mme. de Brebion, the wife of his best friend. M. de Brebion became the lover of Mme. de Bartas. [Lost Illusions.]

BARTAS (Madame Josephine de), wife of the preceding, always called Fifine, "for short." [Lost Illusions.]

BASTIENNE, Parisian modiste in 1821. Finot's journal vaunted her hats, for a pecuniary consideration, and derogated those of Virginie, formerly praised. [Lost Illusions.]

BATAILLES (The), belonging to the bourgeoisie of Paris, traders of Marais, neighbors and friends of the Baudoyers and the Saillards in 1824. M. Bataille was a captain in the National Guard, a fact which he allowed no one to ignore. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDENORD (Godefroid de), born in 1800. In 1821 he was one of the kings of fashion, in company with Marsay, Vandenesse, Ajuda-Pinto, Maxime de Trailles, Rastignac, the Duc de Maufrigneuse and Manerville. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] His nobility and breeding were perhaps not very orthodox. According to Mlle. Emilie de Fontaine, he was of bad figure and stout, having but a single advantage—that of his brown locks. [The Ball at Sceaux.] A cousin, by marriage, of his guardian, the Marquis d'Aiglemont, he was, like him, ruined by the Baron de Nucingen in the Wortschin mine deal. At one time Beaudenord thought of paying court to his pretty cousin, the Marquise d'Aiglemont. In 1827 he wedded Isaure d'Aldrigger and, after having lived with her in a cosy little house on the rue de le Planche, he was obliged to solicit employment of the Minister of Finance, a position which he lost on account of the Revolution of 1830. However, he was reinstated through the influence of Nucingen, in 1836. He now lived modestly with his mother-in-law, his unmarried sister-in-law, Malvina, his wife and four children which she had given him, on the third floor, over the entresol, rue du Mont-Thabor. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

BAUDENORD (Madame de), wife of the preceding. Born Isaure d'Aldrigger, in 1807, at Strasbourg. An indolent blonde, fond of dancing, but a nonentity from both the moral and the intellectual standpoints. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

BAUDOYER (Monsieur and Madame), formerly tanners at Paris, rue Censier. They owned their house, besides having a country seat at l'Isle Adam. They had but one child, Isidore, whose sketch follows. Mme. Baudoyer, born Mitral, was the sister of the bailiff of that name. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDOYER (Isidore), born in 1788; only son of M. and Mme. Baudoyer, tanners, rue Censier, Paris. Having finished a course of study, he obtained a position in the Bureau of Finance, where, despite his notorious incapacity—and through "wire-pulling"—he became head of the office. In 1824, a head of the division, M. de La Billardiere died, when the meritorious clerk, Xavier Rabourdin, aspired to succeed him; but the position went to Isidore Baudoyer, who was backed by the power of money and the influence of the Church. He did not retain this post long; six months thereafter he became a preceptor at Paris. Isidore Baudoyer lived with his wife and her parents in a house on Palais Royale (now Place des Vosges), of which they were joint owners. [The Government Clerks.] He dined frequently, in 1840, at Thuillier's, an old employe of the Bureau of Finance, then domiciled at the rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, who had renewed his acquaintance with his old-time colleagues. [The Middle Classes.] In 1845, this man, who had been a model husband and who made a great pretence of religion maintained Heloise Brisetout. He was then mayor of the arrondissement of the Palais Royale. [Cousin Pons.]

BAUDOYER (Madame), wife of the preceding and daughter of a cashier of the Minister of Finance; born Elisabeth Saillard in 1795. Her mother, an Auvergnat, had an uncle, Bidault, alias Gigonnet, a short-time money lender in the Halles quarter. On the other side, her mother-in-law was the sister of the bailiff Mitral. Thanks to these two men of means, who exercised a veritable secret power, and through her piety, which put her on good terms with the clergy, she succeeded in raising her husband up to the highest official positions—profiting also by the financial straits of Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, Secretary General of Finance. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDOYER (Mademoiselle), daughter of Isidore Baudoyer and Elisabeth Saillard, born in 1812. Reared by her parents with the idea of becoming the wife of the shrewd and energetic speculator Martin Falleix, brother of Jacques Falleix the stock-broker. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDRAND, cashier of a boulevard theatre, of which Gaudissart became the director about 1834. In 1845 he was succeeded by the proletariat Topinard. [Cousin Pons.]

BAUDRY (Planat de), Receiver General of Finances under the Restoration. He married one of the daughters of the Comte de Fontaine. He usually passed his summers at Sceaux, with almost all his wife's family. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

BAUVAN (Comte de), one of the instigators of the Chouan insurrection in the department d'Ille-et-Vilaine, in 1799. Through a secret revelation made to his friend the Marquis de Montauran on the part of Mlle. de Verneuil, the Comte de Bauvan caused, indirectly, the Massacre des Bleus at Vivetiere. Later, surprised in an ambuscade by soldiers of the Republic, he was made a prisoner by Mlle. de Verneuil and owed his life to her; for this reason he became entirely devoted to her, assisting as a witness at her marriage with Montauran. [The Chouans.]

BAUVAN (Comtesse de), in all likelihood the wife of the foregoing, whom she survived. In 1822 she was manager of a Parisian lottery bureau which employed Madame Agatha Bridau, about the same time. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BAUVAN (Comte and Comtesse de), father and mother of Octave de Bauvan. Relics of the old Court, living in a tumble-down house on the rue Payenne at Paris, where they died, about 1815, within a few months of each other, and before the conjugal infelicity of their son. (See Octave de Bauvan.) Probably related to the two preceding. [Honorine.]

BAUVAN (Comte Octave de), statesman and French magistrate. Born in 1787. When twenty-six he married Honorine, a beautiful young heiress who had been reared carefully at the home of his parents, M. and Mme. de Bauvan, whose ward she was. Two or three years afterwards she left the conjugal roof, to the infinite despair of the comte, who gave himself over entirely to winning her back again. At the end of several years he succeeded in getting her to return to him through pity, but she died soon after this reconciliation, leaving one son born of their reunion. The Comte de Bauvan, completely broken, set out for Italy about 1836. He had two residences at Paris, one on rue Payenne, an heirloom, the other on Faubourg Saint-Honore, which was the scene of the domestic reunion. [Honorine.] In 1830, the Comte de Bauvan, then president of the Court of Cassation, with MM. de Granville and de Serizy, tried to save Lucien de Rubempre from a criminal judgment, and, after the suicide of that unhappy man, he followed his remains to the grave. [Scenes from a Courtesan's life.]

BAUVAN (Comtesse Honorine de), wife of the preceding. Born in 1794. Married at nineteen to the Comte Octave de Bauvan. After having abandoned her husband, she was in turn, while expecting a child, abandoned by her lover, some eighteen months later. She then lived a very retired life in the rue Saint-Maur, yet all the time being under the secret surveillance of the Comte de Bauvan who paid exorbitant prices for the artificial flowers which she made. She thus derived from him a rather large part of the sustenance which she believed she owed only to her own efforts. She died, reunited to her husband, shortly after the Revolution of July, 1830. Honorine de Bauvan lost her child born out of wedlock, and she always mourned it. During her years of toilsome exile in the Parisian faubourg, she came in contact successively with Marie Gobain, Jean-Jules Popinot, Felix Gaudissart, Maurice de l'Hostal and Abbe Loraux.[Honorine.]

BEAUDENORD (Madame de), wife of the preceding. Born Isaure d'Aldrigger, in 1807, at Strasbourg. An indolent blonde, fond of dancing, but a nonentity from both the moral and the intellectual standpoints. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

BEAUMESNIL (Mademoiselle), a celebrated actress of the Theatre-Francais, Paris. Mature at the time of the Restoration. She was the mistress of the police-officer Peyrade, by whom she had a daughter, Lydie, whom he acknowledged. The last home of Mlle. Beaumesnil was on rue de Tournon. It was there that she suffered the loss by theft of her valuable diamonds, through Charles Crochard, her real lover. This was at the beginning of the reign of Louis Philippe. [The Middle Classes. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. A Second Home.]

BEAUPIED, or Beau-Pied, an alias of Jean Falcon. (See that name.)

BEAUPRE (Fanny), an actress at the Theatre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, Paris, time of Charles X. Young and beautiful, in 1825, she made a name for herself in the role of marquise in a melodrama entitled "La Famille d'Anglade." At this time she had replaced Coralie, then dead, in the affections of Camusot the silk-merchant. It was at Fanny Beaupre's that Oscar Husson, one of the clerks of lawyer Desroches, lost in gaming the sum of five hundred francs belonging to his employer, and that he was discovered lying dead-drunk on a sofa by his uncle Cardot. [A Start in Life.] In 1829 Fanny Beaupre, for a money consideration, posed as the best friend of the Duc d'Herouville. [Modeste Mignon.] In 1842, after his liaison with Mme. de la Baudraye, Lousteau lived maritally with her. [The Muse of the Department.] A frequent inmate of the mansion magnificently fitted up for Esther Gobseck by the Baron de Nucingen, she knew all the fast set of the years 1829 and 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BEAUSEANT (Marquis and Comte de), the father and eldest brother of the Vicomte de Beauseant, husband of Claire de Bourgogne. [The Deserted Woman.] In 1819, the marquis and the comte dwelt together in their house, rue Saint-Dominique, Paris. [Father Goriot.] While the Revolution was on, the marquis had emigrated. The Abbe de Marolles had dealings with him. [An Episode under the Terror.]

BEAUSEANT (Marquise de). In 1824 a Marquise de Beauseant, then rather old, is found to have dealings with the Chaulieus. It was probably the widow of the marquis of this name, and the mother of the Comte and Vicomte de Beauseant. [Letters of Two Brides.] The Marquise de Beauseant was a native of Champagne, coming of a very old family. [The Deserted Woman.]

BEAUSEANT (Vicomte de), husband of Claire de Bourgogne. He understood the relations of his wife with Miguel d'Ajuda-Pinto, and, whether he liked it or not, he respected this species of morganatic alliance recognized by society. The Vicomte de Beauseant had his residence in Paris on the rue de Grenelle in 1819. At that time he kept a dancer and liked nothing better than high living. He became a marquis on the death of his father and eldest brother. He was a polished man, courtly, methodical, and ceremonious. He insisted upon living selfishly. His death would have allowed Mme. de Beauseant to wed Gaston de Nueil. [Father Goriot. The Deserted Woman.]

BEAUSEANT (Vicomtesse de), born Clair de Bourgogne, in 1792. Wife of the preceding and cousin of Eugene de Rastignac. Of a family almost royal. Deceived by her lover, Miguel d'Ajuda-Pinto, who, while continuing his intimacy with her, asked and obtained the hand of Berthe de Rochefide, the vicomtesse left Paris secretly before this wedding and on the morning following a grand ball which was given at her home where she shone in all her pride and splendor. In 1822 this "deserted woman" had lived for three years in the most rigid seclusion at Courcelles near Bayeux. Gaston de Nueil, a young man of three and twenty, who had been sent to Normandy for his health, succeeded in making her acquaintance, was immediately smitten with her and, after a long seige, became her lover. This was at Geneva, whither she had fled. Their intimacy lasted for nine years, being broken by the marriage of the young man. In 1819 the Vicomtesse de Beauseant received at Paris the most famous "high-rollers" of the day—Malincour, Ronquerolles, Maxime de Trailles, Marsay, Vandenesse, together with an intermingling of the most elegant dames, as Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouet, Mme. de Serizy, the Duchesse Carigliano, the Comtesse Ferraud, Mme. de Lantry, the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani, the Marquise de Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard and the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse. She was equally intimate with Grandlieu, and the General de Montriveau. Rastignac, then poor at the time of his start in the world, also received cards to her receptions. [Father Goriot. The Deserted Woman. Albert Savarus.]

BEAUSSIER, a bourgeois of Issoudun under the Restoration. Upon seeing Joseph Bridau in the diligence, while the artist and his mother were on a journey in 1822, he remarked that he would not care to meet him at night in the corner of a forest—he looked so much like a highwayman. That same evening Beaussier, accompanied by his wife, came to call at Hochon's in order to get a nearer view of the painter. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BEAUSSIER the younger, known as Beaussier the Great; son of the preceding and one of the Knights of Idlesse at Issoudun, commanded by Maxence Gilet, under the Restoration. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BEAUVISAGE, physician of the Convent des Carmelites at Blois, time of Louis XVIII. He was known by Louise de Chaulieu and by Renee de Maucombe, who were reared in the convent. According to Louise de Chaulieu, he certainly belied his name. [Letters of Two Brides.]

BEAUVISAGE, at one time tenant of the splendid farm of Bellache, pertaining to the Gondreville estate at Arcis-sur-Aube. The father of Phileas Beauvisage. Died about the beginning of the nineteenth century. [The Gondreville Mystery. The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Madame), wife of the preceding. She survived him for quite a long period and helped her son Phileas win his success. [The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Phileas), son of Beauvisage the farmer. Born in 1792. A hosier at Arcis-sur-Aube during the Restoration. Mayor of the town in 1839. After a preliminary defeat he was elected deputy at the time when Sallenauve sent in his resignation, in 1841. An ardent admirer of Crevel whose affectations he aped. A millionaire and very vain, he would have been able, according to Crevel, to advance Mme. Hulot, for a consideration, the two hundred thousand francs of which that unhappy lady stood in so dire a need about 1842. [Cousin Betty. The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Madame), born Severine Grevin in 1795. Wife of Phileas Beauvisage, whom she kept in complete subjugation. Daughter of Grevin the notary of Arcis-sur-Aube, Senator Malin de Gondreville's intimate friend. She inherited her father's marvelous faculty of discretion; and, though diminutive in stature, reminded one forcibly, in her face and ways, of Mlle. Mars. [The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Cecile-Renee), only daughter of Phileas Beauvisage and Severine Grevin. Born in 1820. Her natural father was the Vicomte Melchior de Chargeboeuf who was sub-prefect of Arcis-sur-Aube at the commencement of the Restoration. She looked exactly like him, besides having his aristocratic airs. [The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVOIR (Charles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier de), cousin of the Duchesse de Maille. A Chouan prisoner of the Republic in the chateau de l'Escarpe in 1799. The hero of a tale of marital revenge related by Lousteau, in 1836, to Mme. de la Baudraye, the story being obtained—so the narrator said—from Charles Nodier. [The Muse of the Department.]

BECANIERE (La), surname of Barbette Cibot. (See that name.)

BECKER (Edme), a student of medicine who dwelt in 1828 at number 22, rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve—the residence of the Marquis d'Espard. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

BEDEAU, office boy and roustabout for Maitre Bordin, attorney to the Chatelet in 1787. [A Start in Life.]

BEGA, surgeon in a French regiment of the Army of Spain in 1808. After having privately accouched a Spaniard under the espionage of her lover, he was assassinated by her husband, who surprised him in the telling of this clandestine operation. The foregoing adventure was told Mme. de la Baudraye, in 1836, by the Receiver of Finances, Gravier, former paymaster of the Army. [The Muse of the Department.]

BEGRAND (La), a dancer at the theatre of Porte-Sainte-Martin, Paris, in 1820.* Mariette, who made her debut at this time, also scored a success. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

* She shone for more than sixty years as a famous choreographical

artist in the boulevards.

BELLEFEUILLE (Mademoiselle de), assumed name of Caroline Crochard.

BELLEJAMBE, servant of Lieutenant-Colonel Husson in 1837. [A Start in Life.]

BELOR (Mademoiselle de), young girl of Bordeaux living there about 1822. She was always in search of a husband, whom, for some cause or other, she never found. Probably intimate with Evangelista. [A Marriage Settlement.]

BEMBONI (Monsignor), attache to the Secretary of State at Rome, who was entrusted with the transmission to the Duc de Soria at Madrid of the letters of Baron de Macumer his brother, a Spanish refugee at Paris in 1823, 1824. [Letters of Two Brides.]

BENARD (Pieri). After corresponding with a German for two years, he discovered an engraving by Muller entitled the "Virgin of Dresden." It was on Chinese paper and made before printing was discovered. It cost Cesar Birotteau fifteen hundred francs. The perfumer destined this engraving for the savant Vauquelin, to whom he was under obligations. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BENASSIS (Doctor), born about 1779 in a little town of Languedoc. He received his early training at the College of Soreze, Tarn, which was managed by the Oratorians. After that he pursued his medical studies at Paris, residing in the Latin quarter. When twenty-two he lost his father, who left him a large fortune; and he deserted a young girl by whom he had had a son, in order to give himself over to the most foolish dissipations. This young girl, who was thoroughly well meant and devoted to him, died two years after the desertion despite the most tender care of her now contrite lover. Later Benassis sought marriage with another young girl belonging to a Jansenist family. At first the affair was settled, but he was thrown over when the secret of his past life, hitherto concealed, was made known. He then devoted his whole life to his son, but the child died in his youth. After wavering between suicide and the monastery of Grande-Chartreuse, Doctor Benassis stopped by chance in the poor village of l'Isere, five leagues from Grenoble. He remained there until he had transformed the squalid settlement, inhabited by good-for-nothing Cretins, into the chief place of the Canton, bustling and prosperous. Benassis died in 1829, mayor of the town. All the populace mourned the benefactor and man of genius. [The Country Doctor.]

BENEDETTO, an Italian living at Rome in the first third of the nineteenth century. A tolerable musician, and a police spy, "on the side." Ugly, small and a drunkard, he was nevertheless the lucky husband of Luigia, whose marvelous beauty was his continual boast. After an evening spent by him over the wine-cups, his wife in loathing lighted a brasier of charcoal, after carefully closing all the exits of the bedchamber. The neighbors rushing in succeeded in saving her alone; Benedetto was dead. [The Member for Arcis.]

BERENICE, chambermaid and cousin of Coralie the actress of the Panorama and Gymnase Dramatique. A large Norman woman, as ugly as her mistress was pretty, but tender and sympathetic in direct proportion to her corpulence. She had been Coralie's childhood playmate and was absolutely bound up in her. In October, 1822, she gave Lucien de Rubempre, then entirely penniless, four five-franc pieces which she undoubtedly owed to the generosity of chance lovers met on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. This sum enabled the unfortunate poet to return to Angouleme. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

BERGERIN was the best doctor at Saumur during the Restoration. He attended Felix Grandet in his last illness. [Eugenie Grandet.]

BERGMANN (Monsieur and Madame), Swiss. Venerable gardeners of a certain Comte Borromeo, tending his parks located on the two famous isles in Lake Major. In 1823 they owned a house at Gersau, near Quatre-Canton Lake, in the Canton of Lucerne. For a year back they had let one floor of this house to the Prince and Princesse Gandolphini—personages of a novel entitled, "L'Ambitieux par Amour," published by Albert Savarus in the Revue de l'Est, in 1834. [Albert Savarus.]

BERNARD. (See Baron de Bourlac.)

BERNUS, diligence messenger carrying the passengers, freight, and perhaps, the letters of Saint-Nazaire to Guerande, during the time of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. [Beatrix.]

BERQUET, workman of Besancon who erected an elevated kiosk in the garden of the Wattevilles, whence their daughter Rosalie could see every act and movement of Albert Savarus, a near neighbor. [Albert Savarus.]

BERTHIER (Alexandre), marshal of the Empire, born at Versailles in 1753, dying in 1815. He wrote, as Minister of War at the close of 1799, to Hulot, then in command of the Seventy-second demi-brigade, refusing to accept his resignation and giving him further orders. [The Chouans.] On the evening of the battle of Jena, October 13, 1806, he accompanied the Emperor and was present at the latter's interview with the Marquis de Chargeboeuf and Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, special envoys to France to implore pardon for the Simeuses, the Hauteserres, and Michu who had been condemned as abductors of Senator Malin de Gondreville. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

BERTHIER, Parisian notary, successor of Cardot, whose assistant head-clerk he had been and whose daughter Felicite (or Felicie) he married. In 1843 he was Mme. Marneffe's notary. At the same time he had in hand the affairs of Camusot de Marville; and Sylvain Pons often dined with him. Master Berthier drew up the marriage settlement of Wilhelm Schwab with Emilie Graff, and the copartnership articles between Fritz Brunner and Wilhelm Schwab. [Cousin Betty. Cousin Pons.]

BERTHIER (Madame), nee Felicie Cardot, wife of the preceding. She had been wronged by the chief-clerk in her father's office. This young man died suddenly, leaving her enceinte. She then espoused the second clerk, Berthier, in 1837, after having been on the point of accepting Lousteau. Berthier was cognizant of all the head-clerk's doings. In this affair both acted for a common interest. The marriage was measurably happy. Madame Berthier was so grateful to her husband that she made herself his slave. About the end of 1844 she welcomed very coldly Sylvain Pons, then in disgrace in the family circle. [The Muse of the Department. Cousin Pons.]

BERTON, tax-collector at Arcis-sur-Aube in 1839. [The Member for Arcis.]

BERTON (Mademoiselle), daughter of the tax-collector of Arcis-sur-Aube. A young, insignificant girl who acted the satellite to Cecile Beauvisage and Ernestine Mollot. [The Member for Arcis.]

BERTON (Doctor), physician of Paris. In 1836 he lived on rue d'Enfer (now rue Denfert-Rochereau). An assistant in the benevolent work of Mme. de la Chanterie, he visited the needy sick whom she pointed out. Among others he attended Vanda de Mergi, daughter of the Baron de Bourlac—M. Bernard. Doctor Berton was gruff and frigid. [The Seamy Side of History.]

BETHUNE (Prince de), the only man of fashion who knew "what a hat was"—to quote a saying of Vital the hatter, in 1845. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

BEUNIER & CO., the firm Bixiou inquired after in 1845, near Mme. Nourrisson's. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

BIANCHI. Italian. During the first Empire a captain in the sixth regiment of the French line, which was made up almost entirely of men of his nationality. Celebrated in his company for having bet that he would eat the heart of a Spanish sentinel, and winning that bet. Captain Bianchi was first to plant the French colors on the wall of Tarragone, Spain, in the attack of 1808. But a friar killed him. [The Maranas.]

BIANCHON (Doctor), a physician of Sancerre, father of Horace Bianchon, brother of Mme. Popinot, the wife of Judge Popinot. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

BIANCHON (Horace), a physician of Paris, celebrated during the times of Charles X. and Louis Philippe; an officer of the Legion of Honor, member of the Institute, professor of the Medical Faculty, physician-in-charge, at the same time, of a hospital and the Ecole Polytechnique. Born at Sancerre, Cher, about the end of the eighteenth century. He was "interne" at the Cochin Hospital in 1819, at which time he boarded at the Vauquer Pension where he knew Eugene de Rastignac, then studying law, and Goriot and Vautrin. [Father Goriot.] Shortly thereafter, at Hotel Dieu, he became the favored pupil of the surgeon Desplein, whose last days he tended. [The Atheist's Mass.] Nephew of Judge Jean-Jules Popinot and relative of Anselme Popinot, he had dealings with the perfumer Cesar Birotteau, who acknowledged indebtedness to him for a prescription of his famous hazelnut oil, and who invited him to the grand ball which precipitated Birotteau's bankruptcy. [Cesar Birotteau. The Commission in Lunacy.] Member of the "Cenacle" in rue des Quatre-Vents, and on intimate terms with all the young fellows composing this clique, he was consequently enabled, to an extent, to bring Daniel d'Arthez to the notice of Rastignac, now Under-Secretary of State. He nursed Lucien de Rubempre who was wounded in a duel with Michel Chrestien in 1822; also Coralie, Lucien's mistress, and Mme. Bridau in their last illnesses. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Bachelor's Establishment. The Secrets of a Princess.] In 1824 the young Doctor Bianchon accompanied Desplein, who was called in to attend the dying Flamet de la Billardiere. [The Government Clerks.] In Provins in 1828, with the same Desplein and Dr. Martener, he gave the most assiduous attention to Pierrette Lorrain. [Pierrette.] In this same year of 1828 he had a momentary desire to become one of an expedition to Morea. He was then physician to Mme. de Listomere, whose misunderstanding with Rastignac he learned and afterwards related. [A Study of Woman.] Again in company with Desplein, in 1829, he was called in by Mme. de Nucingen with the object of studying the case of Baron de Nucingen, her husband, love-sick for Esther Gobseck. In 1830, still with his celebrated chief, he was cited by Corentin to express an opinion on the death of Peyrade and the lunacy of Lydie his daughter. Then, with Desplein and with Dr. Sinard, to attend Mme. de Serizy, who it was feared would go crazy over the suicide of Lucien de Rubempre. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Associated with Desplein, at this same time, he cared for the dying Honorine, wife of Comte de Bauvan [Honorine.], and examined the daughter of Baron de Bourlac—M. Bernard—who was suffering from a peculiar Polish malady, the plica. [The Seamy Side of History.] In 1831 Horace Bianchon was the friend and physician of Raphael de Valentin. [The Magic Skin.] In touch with the Comte de Granville in 1833, he attended the latter's mistress, Caroline Crochard. [A Second Home.] He also attended Mme. du Bruel, then mistress of La Palferine, who had injured herself by falling and striking her head against the sharp corner of a fireplace. [A Prince of Bohemia.] In 1835 he attended Mme. Marie Gaston—Louise de Chaulieu—though a hopeless case. [Letters of Two Brides.] In 1837 at Paris he accouched Mme. de la Baudraye who had been intimate with Lousteau; he was assisted by the celebrated accoucheur Duriau. [The Muse of the Department.] In 1838 he was Comte Laginski's physician. [The Imaginary Mistress.] In 1840 Horace Bianchon resided on rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, in the house where his uncle, Judge Popinot, died, and he was asked to become one of the Municipal Council, in place of that upright magistrate. But he declined, declaring in favor of Thuillier. [The Middle Classes.] The physician of Baron Hulot, Crevel and Mme. Marneffe, he observed with seven of his colleagues, the terrible malady which carried off Valerie and her second husband in 1842. In 1843 he also visited Lisbeth Fisher in her last illness [Cousin Betty.] Finally, in 1844, Dr. Bianchon was consulted by Dr. Roubaud regarding Mme. Graslin at Montegnac. [The Country Parson.] Horace Bianchon was a brilliant and inspiring conversationalist. He gave to society the adventures known by the following titles: A Study of Woman; Another Study of Woman; La Grande Breteche.

BIBI-LUPIN, chief of secret police between 1819 and 1830; a former convict. In 1819 he personally arrested at Mme. Vauquer's boarding-house Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, his old galley-mate and personal enemy. Under the name of Gondureau, Bibi-Lupin had made overtures to Mlle. Michonneau, one of Mme. Vauquer's guests, and through her he had obtained the necessary proofs of the real identity of Vautrin who was then without the pale of the law, but who later, May, 1830, became his successor as chief of secret police. [Father Goriot. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIDAULT (Monsieur and Madame), brother and sister-in-law of Bidault, alias Gigonnet; father and mother of M. and Mme. Saillard, furniture-dealers under the Central Market pillars during the latter part of the eighteenth and perhaps the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. [The Government Clerks.]

BIDAULT, known as Gigonnet, born in 1755; originally an Auvergnat; uncle of Mme. Saillard on the paternal side. A paper-merchant at one time, retired from business since the year II of the Republic, he opened an account with a Dutchman called Sieur Werbrust, who was a friend of Gobseck. In business relations with the latter, he was one of the most formidable usurers in Paris, during the Empire, the Restoration and the first part of the July Government. He dwelt in rue Greneta. [The Government Clerks. Gobseck.] Luigi Porta, a ranking officer retired under Louis XVIII., sold all his back pay to Gigonnet. [The Vendetta.] Bidault was one of the syndicate that engineered the bankruptcy of Birotteau in 1819. At this time he persecuted Mme. Madou, a market dealer in filberts, who was his debtor. [Cesar Birotteau.] In 1824 he succeeded in making his grand-nephew, Isidore Baudoyer, chief of the division under the Minister of Finance; in this he was aided by Gobseck and Mitral, and worked on the General Secretary, Chardin des Lupeaulx, through the medium of the latter's debts and the fact of his being candidate for deputy. [The Government Clerks.] Bidault was shrewd enough; he saw through—and much to his profit—the pretended speculation involved in the third receivership which was operated by Nucingen in 1826. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In 1833 M. du Tillet advised Nathan, then financially stranded, to apply to Gigonnet, the object being to involve Nathan. [A Daughter of Eve.] The nick-name of Gigonnet was applied to Bidault on account of a feverish, involuntary contraction of a leg muscle. [The Government Clerks.]

BIDDIN, goldsmith, rue de l'Arbe-Sec, Paris, in 1829; one of Esther Gobseck's creditors. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIFFE (La), concubine of the criminal Riganson, alias Le Biffon. This woman, who was a sort of Jacques Collin in petticoats, evaded the police, thanks to her disguises. She could ape the marquise, the baronne and the comtesse to perfection. She had her own carriage and footmen. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIFFON (Le), an alias of Riganson.

BIGORNEAU, sentimental clerk of Fritot's, the shawl merchant in the Bourse quarter, Paris, time of Louis Philippe. [Gaudissart II.]

BIJOU (Olympe). (See Grenouville, Madame.)

BINET, inn-keeper in the Department of l'Orne in 1809. He was concerned in a trial which created some stir, and cast a shadow over Mme. de la Chanterie, striking at her daughter, Mme. des Tours-Minieres. Binet harbored some brigands known as "chauffeurs." He was brought to trial for it and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. [The Seamy Side of History.]

BIROTTEAU (Jacques), a gardener hard by Chinon. He married the chambermaid of a lady on whose estate he trimmed vines. Three boys were born to them: Francois, Jean and Cesar. He lost his wife on the birth of the last child (1779), and himself died shortly after. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BIROTTEAU (Abbe Francois), eldest son of Jacques Birotteau; born in 1766; vicar of the church of Saint-Gatien at Tours, and afterwards cure of Saint-Symphorien in the same city. After the death of the Abbe de la Berge, in 1817, he became confessor of Mme. de Mortsauf, attending her last moments. [The Lily of the Valley.] His brother Cesar, the perfumer, wrote him after his—Cesar's—business failure in 1819, asking aid. Abbe Birotteau, in a touching letter, responded with the sum of one thousand francs which represented all his own little hoard and, in addition, a loan obtained from Mme. de Listomere. [Cesar Birotteau.] Accused of having inveigled Mme. de Listomere to leave him the income of fifteen hundred francs, which she bequeathed him on her death, Abbe Birotteau was placed under interdiction, in 1826, the victim of the terrible hatred of the Abbe Troubert. [The Vicar of Tours.]

BIROTTEAU (Jean), second son of Jacques Birotteau. A captain in the army, killed in the historic battle of La Trebia which lasted three days, June 17–19, 1799. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BIROTTEAU (Cesar), third son of Jacques Birotteau, born in 1779; dealer in perfumes in Paris at number 397 rue Saint-Honore, near the Place Vendome, in the old shop once occupied by the grocer Descoings, who was executed with Andre Chenier in 1794. After the eighteenth Brumaire, Cesar Birotteau succeeded Sieur Ragon, and moved the source of the "Queen of Roses" to the above address. Among his customers were the Georges, the La Billardieres, the Montaurans, the Bauvans, the Longuys, the Mandas, the Berniers, the Guenics, and the Fontaines. These relations with the militant Royalists implicated him in the plot of the 13th Vendemaire, 1795, against the Convention; and he was wounded, as he told over and over, "by Bonaparte on the borders of Saint-Roche." In May, 1800, Birotteau the perfumer married Constance-Barbe-Josephine Pillerault. By her he had an only daughter, Cesarine, who married Anselme Popinot in 1822. Successively captain, then chief of battalion in the National Guard and adjunct-mayor of the eleventh arrondissement, Birotteau was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1818. To celebrate his nomination in the Order, he gave a grand ball* which, on account of the very radical changes necessitated in his apartments, and coupled with some bad speculations, brought about his total ruin; he filed a petition in bankruptcy the year following. By stubborn effort and the most rigid economy, Birotteau was able to indemnify his creditors completely, three years later (1822). But he died soon after the formal court reinstating. He numbered among his patrons in 1818 the following: the Duc and Duchesse de Lenoncourt, the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the Marquise d'Espard, the two Vandenesses, Marsay, Ronquerolles, and the Marquis d'Aiglemont. [Cesar Birotteau. A Bachelor's Establishment.] Cesar Birotteau was likewise on friendly terms with the Guillaumes, clothing dealers in the rue Saint-Denis. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.]