Chapter D (3)

HEQUET (MADAME), mother of the preceding. She was a model of orderliness, who kept her daughter’s accounts with severe precision. She managed the whole household from some small lodgings two stories above her daughter’s, where, moreover, she had established a work-room for dressmaking and plain sewing. Nana.

HERBELIN, a great chemist whose discoveries revolutionized that science. Lazare Chanteau, who was for some time in his laboratory as an assistant, got from him the idea of extracting chemicals from seaweed by a new process. La Joie de Vivre.

HERMELINE, a student of rhetoric at the college of Plassans. He was in love with Sister Angele, and once went the length of cutting his hands with his penknife to get an opportunity of seeing and speaking to her while she dressed his self-inflicted hurts. In the end the student and the Sister ran off together. L’Oeuvre.

HIPPOLYTE, valet to Duveyrier. Pot-Bouille.

HIPPOLYTE, valet to Hennebeau, the manager of the Montsou Mining Company. Germinal.

HOMME NOIR (L’), an apparition said to haunt the Voreux pit. It was said to take the form of an old miner who twisted the necks of bad girls. Germinal.

HONORINE, a maid-servant with the Gregoires. She was a girl of some twenty years, who had been taken in as a child and brought up in the house. Germinal.

HONORINE, a servant in the employment of the Badeuils. When dismissed for misconduct she became insolent.

HORN (LEA DE), a Parisian _demi-mondaine_ whose drawing-room was frequented by some of the old ministers of Louis Philippe. Nana.

HORTEUR (ABBE), parish priest of Bonneville, was a thick-set man of peasant-like build whose red hair was still unsilvered by his fifty years. Much of his time was spent in cultivating a small plot of ground in the churchyard, which he had enclosed as a vegetable garden. With regard to religion, he had come to be contented with the observance of outward ceremonies, and his tolerance had degenerated into a state of indifference as to the spiritual condition of his flock. He was on good terms with Chanteau, with whom it was his custom to play draughts every Saturday. La Joie de Vivre.

HOTON, a sugar-refinery at Montsou. Its prosperity was greatly affected by the strike of miners. Germinal.

HOURDEQUIN (ALEXANDRE), born 1804, was the only son of Isidore Hourdequin. He studied at the college of Chateaudun, but made little progress, as his only interest was in farming, for which he had an absolute passion. On the death of his father he became master of La Borderie, which he cultivated on the latest principles of agriculture, spending large sums upon it. He married a sister of Baillehache, the notary, who brought him a considerable sum, which also went into the land. His wife died in a few years, leaving him with two children, a son named Leon, who to his great disappointment became a soldier, and a daughter who died young. In spite of these misfortunes he retained all his passion for the land, and in it he gradually sunk all his fortune, getting little from it in return. A liaison with Jacqueline Cognet, followed, and she gradually acquired complete influence over him. He died as the result of an accident brought about by Tron, one of his own servants, who was also a lover of Jacqueline. La Terre.

HOURDEQUIN (MADAME), wife of the preceding. See Mademoiselle Baillehache. La Terre.

HOURDEQUIN (ISIDORE), born 1767, was the descendant of an old peasant family of Cloyes, which had educated and elevated itself into a middle-class position in the sixteenth century. They had all been employed in the administration of the salt monopoly, and Isidore, who had been left an orphan, was worth sixty thousand francs, when at twenty-six, the Revolution cost him his post. As a speculation he bought the farm of La Borderie for a fifth of its value, but the depreciation of real estate continued, and he was unable to resell it at the profit of which he had dreamed. He therefore determined to farm it himself, and about this time he married the daughter of a neighbour, who brought him an additional hundred and twenty acres of land. He had one son, Alexandre, and died in 1831. La Terre.

HOURDEQUIN (LEON), son of Alexandre Hourdequin. He had an intense hatred of the soil and became a soldier, being promoted Captain after Solferino. He did not visit his home more than once a year, and was much annoyed to discover the liaison between his father and Jacqueline Cognet. He endeavoured to get the latter into disgrace, but the only effect was to make a complete breach between his father and himself. La Terre.

HOURDEQUIN (MADEMOISELLE), the second child of Alexandre Hourdequin. She was a delicate and charming girl, tenderly loved by her father. She died young, a short time after her mother. La Terre.

HOUTELARD, a fisherman of Bonneville, whose house was washed away after the destruction by the sea of the barricade erected by Lazare Chanteau. La Joie de Vivre.

HUBERT, a chasuble-maker who lived in a house immediately adjoining the cathedral of Beaumont. “For four hundred years the line of Huberts, embroiderers from father to son, had lived in this house.” At twenty years of age he fell in love with a young girl of sixteen, Hubertine, and as her mother refused to give her consent to their union they ran away and were married. On the morning after Christmas, 1860, he found the child Angelique lying in a fainting condition in the snow outside the cathedral door. Having taken her into his house, he and his wife soon became attached to her, and as they had no children, ultimately adopted her as their daughter. Le Reve.

HUBERTINE, wife of the preceding. At the age of sixteen she fell in love with Hubert, the chasuble-maker, and as her mother, widow of a magistrate, would not give her consent, they ran away and were married. A year later she went to the deathbed of her mother, who, however, disinherited her and gave her her curse. “So affected was she by the terrible scene that her infant, born soon after, died.” The Huberts had no other children, and after twenty-four years they still mourned the little one they had lost. She warmly approved of the adoption by her husband and herself of the foundling child Angelique, whom she treated with the greatest kindness. From the bitterness of her own experience she had a horror of disobedience to parents, and when she found that the consent of Monseigneur d’Hautecoeur could not be obtained to a marriage between his son Felicien and Angelique, she did all she could to sever the lovers. In this she was successful for a time, until the illness of Angelique, and her miraculous recovery, induced the Bishop to give his consent. Le Reve.

HUE (M.) a retired Government official, who was a sincere lover of art. He was unfortunately not rich enough to be always buying pictures, and could only bewail the blindness of the public which allowed a genius to die of starvation; for he himself, convinced, had selected Claude Lantier’s crudest works, which he hung by the side of his Delacroix, predicting an equal fortune for them. L’Oeuvre.

HUGON (MADAME), mother of Philippe and Georges Hugon. She was the widow of a notary, and lived quietly at Fondettes, an old family property near Orleans, but had retained a house in Paris in Rue de Richelieu. She had been an old friend of the Marquise de Chouard, and was on intimate terms with her daughter, the Comtesse Sabine. A woman of high principles, she believed that one should overlook much in others in order that something might be pardoned in oneself. In this she contrasted strongly with her old friend the Marquis de Chouard, who professed the most rigorous virtue while he secretly lived a shameful life. She was, however, unable to bear with equanimity the eccentricities of Nana, her neighbour in the country, who led Philippe Hugon into dishonour, and his brother Georges to suicide. Nana.

HUGON (GEORGES), the younger son of Madame Hugon. At seventeen years of age he became infatuated with Nana, and a liaison with her followed. His mother, having discovered the state of affairs, interfered, and kept him at Fondettes for some months after Nana had returned to Paris, but he ultimately followed her there. Though he was not affected by the knowledge that Nana had other lovers, he was driven to frenzy when he learned that his brother Philippe had become one of the number. He implored Nana to marry him, and when she refused to take his offer seriously he plunged a pair of her scissors into his breast. The injury was not immediately fatal, but he died a few months afterwards; some said as the result of the wound reopening, while others spoke of a second and successful attempt at suicide. Nana.

HUGON (PHILIPPE), the elder son of Madame Hugon. A tall, handsome youth, he quickly attained the rank of lieutenant in the army, and was stationed first in the garrison at Bourges, and afterwards at Vincennes. His mother imprudently sent him to endeavour to release Georges from the toils of Nana, with the result that he was himself ensnared. He had little money of his own, and, as the demands of Nana were unceasing, he began to take small sums from the regimental funds, of which he was treasurer. The thefts went on for a considerable time, and when discovery was made they amounted to twelve thousand francs. Philippe was arrested, and when he was released from prison some months afterwards, dishonoured for ever, he was only in time to join his mother at the death-bed of her other son, who was also a victim to Nana’s unhappy influence. Nana.

HUGUENIN, held a sinecure worth six thousand francs at the Ministry of the Interior. When he died Eugene Rougon, the Minister, gave the post to Leon Bejuin. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

HUPEL DE LA NOUE (M.), _prefet_ of the district for which M. Mareuil was member. He arranged the _tableaux vivants_ at the great party given by Aristide Saccard. La Curee.

HURET, a member of the Chamber of Deputies who obtained his election through the influence of Eugene Rougon. His very existence depended on the favour of the Minister of State, towards whom he conducted himself as a sort of general servant. “By following this calling for a couple of years he had, thanks to bribes and pickings, prudently realized, been able to increase his estates.” Having ascertained that Rougon would not oppose the foundation of the Universal Bank, Huret became a director; later on, when the shares had risen to their highest point, he sold out in the knowledge that Rougon had decided to abandon his brother and that a catastrophe would be inevitable. L’Argent.

HUTIN, a salesman in the silk department of “The Ladies’ Paradise.” “He had managed after eighteen months’ service to become one of the principal salesmen, thanks to a natural flexibility of character, a continual flow of caressing flattery under which was concealed a furious rage for business.” Having conspired against Robineau, the “second hand” in his department, he succeeded him, only to be conspired against in turn by his own subordinates. When Denise Baudu first came to “The Ladies’ Paradise” Hutin showed her some kindness, for which she was grateful, but ultimately he made statements about her which were entirely without foundation. Au Bonheur des Dames.

HUTIN (MADAME), a woman who lived in the vicinity of the _Halles Centrales_, and was spied on by Mademoiselle Saget, whose penetrating eyes allowed none of her neighbours to escape notice. Le Ventre de Paris.