Chapter M (4)

POPINOT (Jean-Jules), son of the preceding, brother of Madame Ragon, and husband of Mademoiselle Bianchon--of Sancerre--embraced the profession of law, but did not attain promptly the rank which his powers and integrity deserved. Jean-Jules Popinot remained for a long time a judge of a lower court in Paris. He took a deep interest in the fate of the young orphan Anselme Popinot, his nephew, and a clerk of Cesar Birotteau; and was invited with Madame Jean-Jules Popinot to the perfumer's famous ball, on Sunday, December 17, 1818. Nearly eighteen months later, Jean-Jules Popinot once more saw Anselme, who was set up as a druggist on the rue des Cinq-Diamants, and met Felix Gaudissart, the commercial-traveler, and tried to excuse certain imprudent utterances of his on the political situation, that had been reported by Canquoelle-Peyrade, the police-agent. [Cesar Birotteau.] Three years later he lost his wife, who had brought him, for dowry, an income of six thousand francs, representing exactly twice his personal assets. Living from this time at the rue de Fouarre, Popinot was able to give free rein to the exercise of charity, a virtue that had become a passion with him. At the urgent instance of Octave de Bauvan, Jean-Jules Popinot, in order to aid Honorine, the Count's wife, sent her a pretended commission-merchant, probably Felix Gaudissart, offering a more than generous price for the flowers she made. [Honorine.] Jean-Jules Popinot eventually established a sort of benevolent agency. Lavienne, his servant, and Horace Bianchon, his wife's nephew aided him. He relieved Madame Toupinet, a poor woman on the rue du Petit-Banquier, from want (1828). Madame d'Espard's request for a guardian for her husband served to divert Popinot from his role of Saint Vincent de Paul; a man of rare delicacy hidden beneath a rough and uncultured exterior, he immediately discovered the injustice of the wrongs alleged by the marchioness, and recognized the real victim in M. d'Espard, when he cross-questioned him at No. 22 rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, in an apartment, the good management of which he seemed to envy, though the rooms were simply furnished, and in striking contrast with the splendor of which he had been a witness, at the home of the marchioness in the Faubourg Saint-Honore. A delay caused by a cold in the head, and especially the influence of Madame d'Espard's intrigues, removed Popinot from the cause, in which Camusot was substituted. [The Commission in Lunacy.] We have varying accounts of Jean-Jules Popinot's last years. Madame de la Chanterie's circle mourned the death of the judge in 1833 [The Seamy Side of History.] and Phellion in 1840. J.-J. Popinot probably died at No. 22 rue de la Montagne-Saint-Genevieve, in the apartment that he had already coveted, being a counselor to the court, municipal counselor of Paris, and a member of the General Council of the Seine. [The Middle Classes.]

POPINOT (Anselme), a poor orphan, and nephew of the preceding and of Madame Ragon (born Popinot), who took charge of him in his infancy. Small of stature, red-haired, and lame, he gladly became clerk to Cesar Birotteau, the Paris perfumer of the Reine des Roses, the successor of Ragon, with whom he did a great deal of work, in order to be able to show appreciation for the favor shown a part of his family, that was well-nigh ruined as a result of some bad investments (the Wortschin mines, 1818-19). Anselme Popinot, being secretly in love with Cesarine Birotteau, his employer's daughter--the feeling being reciprocated, moreover--brought about, so far as his means allowed, the rehabilitation of Cesar, thanks to the profits of his drug business, established on the rue des Cinq-Diamants, between 1819 and 1820. The beginning of his great fortune and of his domestic happiness dated from this time. [Cesar Birotteau.] After Birotteau's death, about 1822, Popinot married Mademoiselle Birotteau, by whom he had three children, two sons and a daughter. The consequences of the Revolution of 1830 brought Anselme Popinot in the way of power and honors; he was twice deputy after the beginning of Louis Philippe's reign, and was also minister of commerce. [Gaudissart the Great.] Anselme Popinot, twice secretary of state, had finally been made a count, and a peer of France. He owned a mansion on the rue Basse du Rempart. In 1834 he rewarded Felix Gaudissart for services formerly rendered on the rue des Cinq-Diamants, and entrusted to him the management of a boulevard theatre, where the opera, the drama, the fairy spectacle, and the ballet took turn and turn. [Cousin Pons.] Four years later the Comte Popinot, again minister of commerce and agriculture, a lover of the arts and one who gladly acted the part of the refined Maecenas, bought for two thousand francs a copy of Steinbock's "Groupe de Samson" and stipulated that the mould should be destroyed that there might be only two copies, his own and the one belonging to Mademoiselle Hortense Hulot, the artist's fiancee. When Wenceslas married Mademoiselle Hulot, Popinot and Eugene de Rastignac were the Pole's witnesses. [Cousin Betty.]

POPINOT (Madame Anselme), wife of the preceding, born Cesarine Birotteau, in 1801. Beautiful and attractive though, at one time, almost promised to Alexandre Crottat, she married, about 1822, Anselme Popinot, whom she loved and by whom she was loved. [Cesar Biroteau.] After her marriage, though in the midst of splendor, she remained the simple, open, and even artless character that she was in the modest days of her youth.[*] The transformation of the dancer Claudine du Bruel, the whilom Tullia of the Royal Academy of Music, to a moral bourgeois matron, surprised Madame Anselme, who became intimate with her. [A Prince of Bohemia.] The Comtesse Popinot rendered aid, in a delicate way, in 1841, to Adeline Hulot d'Ervy. Her influence with that of Mesdames de Rastignac, de Navarreins, d'Espard, de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Lenoncourt, and de la Bastie, procured Adeline's appointment as salaried inspector of charities. [Cousin Betty.] Three years later when one of her three children married Mademoiselle Camusot de Marville, Madame Popinot, although she appeared at the most exclusive social gatherings, imitated modest Anselme, and, unlike Amelie Camusot, received Pons, a tenant of her maternal great-uncle, C.-J. Pillerault. [Cousin Pons.]

[*] In 1838, the little theatre Pantheon, destroyed in 1846, gave a
vaudeville play, by M. Eugene Cormon, entitled "Cesar Birotteau,"
of which Madame Anselme Popinot was one of the heroines.

POPINOT (Vicomte), the eldest of the three children of the preceding couple, married, in 1845, Cecile Camusot de Marville. [Cousin Pons.] During the course of the year 1846, he questioned Victorin Hulot about the remarkable second marriage of Baron Hector Hulot d'Ervy, which was solemnized on the first of February of that year. [Cousin Betty.]

POPINOT (Vicomtesse), wife of the preceding; born Cecile Camusot in 1821, before the name Marville was added to Camusot through the acquisition of a Norman estate. Red-haired and insignificant looking, but very pretentious, she persecuted her distant kinsman Pons, from whom she afterwards inherited; from lack of sufficient fortune she failed of more than one marriage, and was treated with scorn by the wealthy Frederic Brunner, especially because of her being an only daughter and the spoiled child. [Cousin Pons.]

POPINOT-CHANDIER (Madame and Mademoiselle), mother and daughter; of the family of Madame Boirouge; hailing from Sancerre; frequent visitors of Madame de la Baudraye, whose superiority of manner they ridiculed in genuine bourgeois fashion. [The Muse of the Department.]

PORCHON. (See Vidal.)

PORRABERIL (Euphemie). (See San-Real, Marquise de.)

PORRIQUET, an elderly student of the classics, was teacher of Raphael de Valentin, whom he had as a pupil in the sixth class, in the third class, and in rhetoric. Retired from the university without a pension after the Revolution of July, on suspicion of Carlism, seventy years of age, without means, and with a nephew whose expenses he was paying at the seminary of Saint-Sulpice, he went to solicit the aid of his dear "foster-child," to obtain the position of principal of a provincial school, and suffered rough treatment at the hands of the _carus alumnus_, every act of whose shortened Valentin's existence. [The Magic Skin.]

PORTA (Luigi), born in 1793, strikingly like his sister Nina. He was the last member that remained, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, of the Corsican family of Porta, by reason of a bloody vendetta between his kinspeople and the Piombos. Luigi Porta alone was saved, by Elisa Vanni, according to Giacomo; he lived at Genoa, where he enlisted, and found himself, when quite young, in the affair of the Beresina. Under the Restoration he was already an officer of high rank; he put an end to his military career and was hunted by the authorities at the same time as Labedoyere. Luiga Porta found Paris a safe place of refuge. Servin, the Bonapartist painter, who had opened a studio of drawing, where he taught his art to young ladies, concealed the officer. One of his pupils, Ginevra di Piombo, discovered the outlaw's hiding-place, aided him, fell in love with him, made him fall in love with her, and married him, despite the opposition of her father, Bartolomeo di Piombo. Luigi Porta chose as a witness, when he was married, his former comrade, Louis Vergniaud, also known to Hyacinthe Chabert. He lived from hand to mouth by doing secretary's work, lost his wife, and, crushed by poverty, went to tell the Piombos of her death. He died almost immediately after her (1820). [The Vendetta.]

PORTA (Madame Luigi), wife of the preceding, born Ginevra di Piombo about 1790; shared, in Corsica as in Paris, the stormy life of her father and mother, whose adored child she was. In Servin's, the painter's studio, where with her talent she shone above the whole class, Ginevra knew Mesdames Tiphaine and Camusot de Marville, at that time Mesdemoiselles Roguin and Thirion. Defended by Laure alone, she endured the cruelly planned persecution of Amelie Thirion, a Royalist, and an envious woman, especially when the favorite drawing pupil discovered and aided Luigi Porta, whom she married shortly afterwards, against the will of Bartolomeo di Piombo. Madame Porta lived most wretchedly; she resorted to Magus to dispose of copies of paintings at a meagre price; brought a son into the world, Barthelemy; could not nurse him, lost him, and died of grief and exhaustion in the year 1820. [The Vendetta.]

PORTAIL (Du), name assumed by Corentin, when as "prefect of secret police of diplomacy and political affairs," he lived on the rue Honore-Chevalier, in the reign of Louis Philippe. [The Government Clerks.]

PORTENDUERE (Comte Luc-Savinien de), grandson of Admiral de Portenduere, born about 1788, represented the elder branch of the Portendueres, of whom Madame de Portenduere and her son Savinien represented the younger branch. Under the Restoration, being the husband of a rich wife, the father of three children and member for Isere, he lived, according to the season of the year, in the chateau of Portenduere or the Portenduere mansion, which were situated, the one in Dauphine, and the other in Paris, and extended no aid to the Vicomte Savinien, though he was harassed by his creditors. [Ursule Mirouet.]

PORTENDUERE (Madame de,) born Kergarouet, a Breton, proud of her noble descent and of her race. She married a post-captain, nephew of the famous Admiral de Portenduere, the rival of the Suffrens, the Kergarouets, and the Simeuses; bore him a son, Savinien; she survived her husband; was on intimate terms with the Rouvres, her country neighbors; for, having but little means, she lived, during the Restoration, in the little village of Nemours, on the rue des Bourgeois, where Denis Minoret was domiciled. Savinien's prodigal dissipation and the long opposition to his marriage to Ursule Mirouet saddened, or at least distrubed, Madame de Portenduere's last days. [Ursule Mirouet.]

PORTENDUERE (Vicomte Savinien de), son of preceding, born in 1806; cousin of the Comte de Portenduere, who was descended from the famous admiral of this name, and great nephew of Vice-Admiral Kergarouet. During the Restoration he left the little town of Nemours and his mother's society to go and try the life in Paris, where, in spite of his relationship with the Fontaines, he fell in love with Emilie de Fontaine, who did not reciprocate his love, but married first Admiral de Kergarouet, and afterwards the Marquis de Vandenesse. [The Ball at Sceaux.] Savinien also became enamored of Leontine de Serizy; was on intimate terms with Marsay, Rastignac, Rubempre, Maxime de Trailles, Blondet and Finot; soon lost a considerable sum of money, and, laden with debts, became a boarder at Sainte-Pelagie; he then received Marsay, Rastignac and Rubempre, the latter wishing to relieve his distress, much to the amusement of Florine, afterwards Madame Nathan. [Secrets from a Courtesan's Life.] Urged by Ursule Mirouet, his ward, Denis Minoret, who was one of Savinien's neighbors at Nemours, raised the sum necessary to liquidate young Portenduere's debt, and freed him of its burden. The viscount enlisted in the marine service, and retired with the rank and insignia of an ensign, two years after the Revolution of July, and five years before being able to marry Ursule Mirouet. [Ursule Mirouet.] The Vicomte and Vicomtesse de Portenduere made a charming couple, recalling two other happy families of Paris, the Langinskis and the Ernest de la Basties. In 1840 they lived on the Rue Saint-Peres, became the intimate friends of the Calyste du Guenics, and shared their box at the Italiens. [Beatrix.]

PORTENDUERE (Vicomtesse Savinien de), wife of the preceding, born in 1814. The orphan daughter of an unfortunate artist, Joseph Mirouet, the military musician, and Dinah Grollman, a German; natural granddaughter of Valentine Mirouet, the famous harpsichordist, and consequently niece of the rich Dr. Denis Minoret; she was adopted by the last named, and became his ward, so much the more adored as, in appearance and character, she recalled Madame Denis Minoret, deceased. Ursule's girlhood and youth, passed at Nemours, were marked alternately by joy and bitterness. Her guardian's servants, as well as his intimate friends, overwhelmed her with indications of interest. A distinguished performer, the future viscountess received lessons in harmony from Schmucke, the pianist, who was summoned from Paris. Being of a religious nature, she converted Denis Minoret, who was an adherent of Voltaire's teachings; but the influence she acquired over him called forth against the young girl the fierce animosity of Minoret-Levrault, Massin, Cremiere, Dionis and Goupil, who, foreseeing that she would be the doctor's residuary legatee, abused her, slandered her, and persecuted her most cruelly. Ursule was also scornfully treated by Madame de Portenduere, with whose son, Savinien, she was in love. Later, the relenting of Minoret-Levrault and Goupil, shown in various ways, and her marriage to the Vicomte de Portenduere, at last approved by his mother, offered Ursule some consolation for the loss of Denis Minoret. [Ursule Mirouet.] Paris adopted her, and made much of her; she made a glorious success in society as a singer. [Another Study of Woman.] Amid her own great happiness, the viscountess showed herself the devoted friend, in 1840, of Madame Calyste du Guenic, just after her confinement, who was almost dying of grief over the treachery of her husband. [Beatrix.]

POSTEL was pupil and clerk of Chardon the druggist of L'Houmeau, a suburb of Angouleme; succeeded Chardon after his death; was kind to his former patron's unfortunate family; desired, but without success, to marry Eve, who was afterwards Madame David Sechard, and became the husband of Leonie Marron, by whom he had several sickly children. [Lost Illusions.]

POSTEL (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Leonie Marron, daughter of Doctor Marron, a practitioner in Marsac (Charente); through jealousy she was disagreeable to the beautiful Madame Sechard; through cupidity she fawned upon the Abbe Marron, from whom she hoped to inherit. [Lost Illusions.]

POTASSE, sobriquet of the Protez family, manufacturers of chemicals, as associates of Cochin; known by Minard, Phellion, Thuiller and Colleville, types of Parisians of the middle class, about 1840. [The Middle Classes.]

POTEL, former officer of the Imperial forces, retired, during the Restoration, to Issoudun, with Captain Renard; he took sides with Maxence Gilet against the officers, Mignonnet and Carpentier, declared enemies of the chief of the "Knights of Idlesse." [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

POULAIN (Madame), born in 1778. She married a trousers-maker, who died in very reduced circumstances; for from the sale of his business she received only about eleven hundred francs for income. She lived then, for twenty years, on work which some fellow-countrymen of the late Poulain gave to her, and the meagre profits of which afforded her the opportunity of starting in a professional career her son, the future physician, whom she dreamed of seeing gain a rich marriage settlement. Madame Poulain, though deprived of an education, was very tactful, and she was in the habit of retiring when patients came to consult her son. This she did when Madame Cibot called at the office on rue d'Orleans, late in 1844 or early in 1845. [Cousin Pons.]

POULAIN (Doctor), born about 1805, friendless and without fortune; strove in vain to gain the patronage of the Paris "four hundred" after 1835. He kept constantly near him his mother, widow of a trousers-maker. As a poor neighborhood physician he afterwards lived with his mother on rue d'Orleans at the Marais. He became acquainted with Madame Cibot, door-keeper at a house on rue de Normandie, the proprietor of which, C.-J. Pillerault, uncle of the Popinots and ordinarily under Horace Bianchon's treatment, he cured. By Madame Cibot, Poulain was called also to attend Pons in a case of inflammation of the liver. Aided by his friend Fraisier, he arranged matters to suit the Camusots de Marville, the rightful heirs of the musician. Such a service had its reward. In 1845, following the death of Pons, and that of his residuary legatee, Schmucke, soon after, Poulain was given an appointment in the Quinze-Vingts hospital as head physician of this great infirmary. [Cousin Pons.]

POUPART, or Poupard, from Arcis-sur-Aube, husband of Gothard's sister; one of the heroes of the Simeuse affair; proprietor of the Mulet tavern. Being devoted to the interest of the Cadignans, the Cinq-Cygnes and the Hauterserres, in 1839, during the electoral campaign, he gave lodging to Maxime de Trailles, a government envoy, and to Paradis, the count's servant. [The Member for Arcis.]

POUTIN, colonel of the Second lancers, an acquaintance of Marechal Cottin, minister of war in 1841, to whom he told that many years before this one of his men at Severne, having stolen money to buy his mistress a shawl, repented of his deed and ate broken glass so as to escape dishonor. The Prince of Wissembourg told this story to Hulot d'Ervy, while upbraiding him for his dishonesty. [Cousin Betty.]

PRELARD (Madame), born in 1808, pretty, at first mistress of the assassin Auguste, who was executed. She remained constantly in the clutches of Jacques Collin, and was married by Jacqueline Collin, aunt of the pseudo-Herrera, to the head of a Paris hardware-house on Quai aux Fleurs, the Bouclier d'Achille. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PREVOST (Madame), well-known florist, whose store still remains in the Palais-Royal. Early in 1830, Frederic de Nucingen bought a ten louis bouquet there for Esther van Gobseck. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PRIEUR (Madame), laundress at Angouleme, for whom Mademoiselle Chardon, afterwards Madame David Sechard, worked. [Lost Illusions.]

PRON (Monsieur and Madame), both teachers. M. Pron taught rhetoric in 1840 at a college in Paris directed by priests. Madame Pron, born Barniol, and therefore sister-in-law of Madame Barniol-Phellion, succeeded Mesdemoiselles La Grave, about the same time, as director of their young ladies' boarding-school. M. and Madame Pron lived in the Quartier Saint-Jacques, and frequently visited the Thuilliers. [The Middle Classes.]

PROTEZ AND CHIFFREVILLE, manufactured chemicals; sold a hundred thousand francs' worth to the inventor, Balthazar Claes, about 1812. [The Quest of the Absolute.] On account of their friendly relations with Cochin, of the Treasury, all the Protezes and the Chiffrevilles were invited to the celebrated ball given by Cesar Birotteau, Sunday, December 17, 1818, on rue Saint Honore. [Cesar Birotteau.]

PROUST, clerk to Maitre Bordin, a Paris attorney, in November, 1806; this fact became known a few years later by Godeschal, Oscar Husson and Marest, when they reviewed the books of the attorneys who had been employed in Bordin's office. [A Start in Life.]

PROVENCAL (Le), born in 1777, undoubtedly in the vicinity of Arles. A common soldier during the wars at the close of the eighteenth century, he took part in the expedition of General Desaix into upper Egypt. Having been taken prisoner by the Maugrabins he escaped only to lose himself in the desert, where he found nothing to eat but dates. Reduced to the dangerous friendship of a female panther, he tamed her, singularly enough, first by his thoughtless caresses, afterwards by premeditation. He ironically named her Mignonne, as he had previously called Virginie, one of his mistresses. Le Provencal finally killed his pet, not without regret, having been moved to great terror by the wild animal's fierce love. About the same time the soldier was discoverd by some of his own company. Thirty years afterwards, an aged ruin of the Imperial wars, his right leg gone, he was one day visiting the menagerie of Martin the trainer, and recalled his adventure for the delectation of the young spectator. [A Passion in the Desert.]

Q

QUELUS (Abbe), priest of Tours or of its vicinity, called frequently on the Chessels, neighbors of the Mortsaufs, at the beginning of the century. [The Lily of the Valley.]

QUEVERDO, faithful steward of the immense domain of Baron de Macumer, in Sardinia. After the defeat of the Liberals in Spain, in 1823, he was told to look out for his master's safety. Some fishers for coral agreed to pick him up on the coast of Andalusia and set him off at Macumer. [Letters of Two Brides.]

QUILLET (Francois), office-boy employed by Raoul Nathan's journal on rue Feydau, Paris, 1835. He aided his employer by lending him the name of Francois Quillet. Raoul, in great despair, while occupying a furnished room on rue du Mail, threw several creditors off his track by the use of this assumed name. [A Daughter of Eve.]

R

RABOUILLEUSE (La), name assumed by Flore Brazier, who became in turn Madame Jean-Jacques Rouget and Madame Philippe Bridau. (See this last name.)

RABOURDIN (Xavier), born in 1784; his father was unknown to him. His mother, a beautiful and fastidious woman, who lived in luxury, left him a penniless orphan of sixteen. At this time he left the Lycee Napoleon and became a super-numerary clerk in the Treasury Department. He was soon promoted, becoming second head clerk at twenty-two and head clerk at twenty-five. An unknown, but influential friend, was responsible for this progress, and also gave him an introduction into the home of M. Leprince, a wealthy widower, who had formerly been an auctioneer. Rabourdin met, loved and married this man's only daughter. Beginning with this time, when his influential friend probably died, Rabourdin saw the end of his own rapid progress. Despite his faithful, intelligent efforts, he occupied at forty the same position. In 1824 the death of M. Flamet de la Billardiere left open the place of division chief. This office, to which Rabourdin had long aspired, was given to the incapable Baudoyer, who had been at the head of a bureau, through the influence of money and the Church. Disgusted, Rabourdin sent in his resignation. He had been responsible for a rather remarkable plan for executive and social reform, and this possibly contributed to his overthrow. During his career as a minister Rabourdin lived on rue Duphot. He had by his wife two children, Charles, born in 1815, and a daughter, born two years later. About 1830 Rabourdin paid a visit to the Bureau of Finances, where he saw once more his former pages, nephews of Antoine, who had retired from service by that time. From these he learned that Colleville and Baudoyer were tax-collectors in Paris. [The Government Clerks.] Under the Empire he was a guest at the evening receptions given by M. Guillaume, the cloth-dealer of rue Saint-Denis. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.] Later he and his wife were invited to attend the famous ball tendered by Cesar Birotteau, December 17, 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.] In 1840, being still a widower, Rabourdin was one of the directors of a proposed railway. At this time he began to lodge in a house on the Place de la Madeleine, which had been recently bought by the Thuilliers, whom he had known in the Bureau of Finance. [The Middle Classes.]

RABOURDIN (Madame), born Celestine Leprince, in 1796; beautiful, tall and of good figure; reared by an artistic mother; a painter and a good musician; spoke many tongues and even had some knowledge of science. She was married when very young through the instrumentality of her father, who was then a widower. Her reception-rooms were not open to Jean-Jacques Bixiou, but she was frequently visited by the poet Canalis, the painter Schinner, Doctor Bianchon, who was especially fond of her company; Lucien de Rubempre, Octave de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, F. du Bruel, Andoche Finot, Derville, Chatelet, then deputy; Ferdinand du Tillet, Paul de Mannerville, and the Vicomte de Portenduere. A rival, Madame Colleville, had dubbed Madame Rabourdin "The Celimene of rue Duphot." Having been over-indulged by her mother, Celestine Leprince thought herself entitled to a man of high rank. Consequently, although M. Rabourdin pleased her, she hesitated at first about marrying him, as she did not consider him of high enough station. This did not prevent her loving him sincerely. Although she was very extravagant, she remained always strictly faithful to him. By listening to the demands of Chardin des Lupeaulx, secretary-general in the Department of Finance, who was in love with her, she might have obtained for her husband the position of division chief. Madame Rabourdin's reception days were Wednesdays and Fridays. She died in 1840. [The Commission in Lunacy. The Government Clerks.]

RABOURDIN (Charles), law-student, son of the preceding couple, born in 1815, lived from 1836 to 1838 in a house on rue Corneille, Paris. There he became acquainted with Z. Marcas, helped him in his distress, attended him on his death-bed, and, with Justi, a medical student, as his only companion, followed the body of this great, but unknown man to the beggar's grave in Montparnasse cemetery. After having told some friends the short, but pitiful story of Z. Marcas, Charles Rabourdin, following the advice of the deceased, left the country, and sailed from Havre for the Malayan islands; for he had not been able to gain a foothold in France. [Z. Marcas.]

RACQUETS (Des). (See Raquets, des.)

RAGON born about 1748; a perfumer on rue Saint-Honore, between Saint-Roche and rue des Frondeurs, Paris, towards the close of the eighteenth century; small man, hardly five feet tall, with a face like a nut-cracker, self-important and known for his gallantry. He was succeeded in his business, the "Reine des Roses," by his chief clerk, Cesar Birotteau, after the eighteenth Brumaire. As a former perfumer to Her Majesty Queen Marie-Antoinette, M. Ragon always showed Royalist zeal, and, under the Republic, the Vendeans used him to communicate between the princes and the Royalist committee of Paris. He received at that time the Abbe de Marolles, to whom he pointed out and revealed the person of Louis XVI.'s executioner. In 1818, being a loser in the Nucingen speculation in Wortschin mining stock, Ragon lived with his wife in an apartment on rue du Petit-Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice. [Cesar Birotteau. An Episode under the Terror.]

RAGON (Madame), born Popinot; sister of Judge Popinot, wife of the preceding, being very nearly the same age as her husband, was in 1818 "a tall slender woman of wrinkled face, sharp nose, thin lips, and the artificial manner of a marchioness of the old line." [Cesar Birotteau.]

RAGOULLEAU[*] (Jean-Antoine), a Parisian lawyer, whose signature the widow Morin tried to extort. She also attempted his assassination, and was condemned, January 11, 1812, on the evidence of a number of witnesses, among others that of Poiret, to twenty years of hard labor. [Father Goriot.]

[*] The real spelling of the name, as shown by some authentic papers,
is Ragouleau.

RAGUET, working boy in the establishment of Cesar Birotteau, the perfumer, in 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.]

RAPARLIER, a Douai notary; drew up marriage contracts in 1825 for Marguerite Claes and Emmanuel de Solis, for Felicie Claes and Pierquin the notary, and for Gabriel Claes and Mademoiselle Conyncks. [The Quest for the Absolute.]

RAPARLIER, a Douai auctioneer, under the Restoration; nephew of the preceding; took an inventory at the Claes house after the death of Madame Balthazar Claes in 1816. [The Quest of the Absolute.]

RAPP, French general, born at Colmar in 1772; died in 1821. As aide-de-camp of the First Consul, Bonaparte, he found himself one day in October serving near his chief at the Tuileries, when the proscribed Corsican, Bartolomeo de Piombo, came up rather unexpectedly. Rapp, who was suspicious of this man, as he was of all Corsicians, wished to stay at Bonaparte's side during the interview, but the Consul good-naturedly sent him away. [The Vendetta.] On October 13, 1806, the day before the battle of Jena, Rapp had just made an important report to the Emperor at the moment when Napoleon was receiving on the next day's battlefield Mademoiselle Laurence de Cinq-Cygne and M. de Chargeboeuf, who had come from France to ask for the pardon of the two Hauteserres and the two Simeuses, people affected by the political suit and condemned to hard labor. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

RAQUETS (Des), lived at Douai, of Flemish descent, and devoted to the traditions and customs of his province; very wealthy uncle of the notary Pierquin, his only heir, who received his inheritance towards the close of the Restoration. [The Quest of the Absolute.]

RASTIGNAC (Chevalier de), great-uncle of Eugene de Rastignac; as vice-admiral was commander of the "Vengeur" before 1789, and lost his entire fortune in the service of the king, as the revolutionary government did not wish to satisfy his demands in the adjusting of the Compagnie des Indes affairs. [Father Goriot.]

RASTIGNAC (Baron and Baronne de) had, near Ruffec, Charente, an estate, where they lived in the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and where were born to them five children: Eugene, Laure-Rose, Agathe, Gabriel and Henri. They were poor, and lived in close retirement, keeping a dignified silence, and like their neighbours, the Marquis and Marquise de Pimentel, exercised, through their connection with court circles, a strong influence over the entire province, being invited at various times to the home of Madame de Bargeton, at Angouleme, where they met Lucien de Rubempre and were able to understand him. [Father Goriot. Lost Illusions.]

RASTIGNAC (Eugene de),[*] eldest son of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac, born at Rastignac near Ruffec in 1797. He came to Paris in 1819 to study law; lived at first on the third floor of the Vauquer lodging-house, rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, having then some association with Jacques Collin, called Vautrin, who was especially interested in him and wanted him to marry Victorine Taillefer. Rastignac became the lover of Madame de Nucingen, second daughter of Joachim Goriot, an old vermicelli-maker, and in February, 1820, lived on rue d'Artois in pretty apartments, rented and furnished by the father of his mistress. Goriot died in his arms. The servant, Christophe, and Rastignac were the only attendants in the good man's funeral procession. At the Vauquer lodging-house he was intimate with Horace Bianchon, a medical student. [Father Goriot.] In 1821, at the Opera, young Rastignac made fun for the occupants of two boxes over the provincialisms of Madame de Bargeton and Lucien de Rubempre, "young Chardon." This led Madame d'Espard to leave the theatre with her relative, thus publicly and in a cowardly way abandoning the distinguished provincial. Some months later Rastignac sought the favor of this same Lucien de Rubempre, who was by that time an influential citizen. He agreed to act with Marsay as the poet's witness in the duel which he fought with Michel Chrestien, in regard to Daniel d'Arthez. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] At the last masquerade ball of 1824 Rastignac found Rubempre, who had disappeared from Paris some time before. Vautrin, recalling his memories of the Vauquer lodging-house, urged him authoritatively to treat Lucien as a friend. Shortly after, Rastignac became a frequenter of the sumptuous mansion furnished by Nucingen for Esther van Gobseck on rue Saint-Georges. Rastignac was present at Lucien de Rubempre's funeral in May, 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] About the same time the Comte de Fontaine asked his daughter Emilie what she thought of Rastignac--among several others--as a possible husband for her. But knowing the relations of this youthful aspirant with Madame de Nucingen, she saved herself by replying maliciously. [The Ball at Sceaux.] In 1828 Rastignac sought to become Madame d'Espard's lover, but was restrained by his friend, Doctor Bianchon. [The Interdiction.] During the same year Rastignac was treated slightingly by Madame de Listomere, because he asked her to return a letter, which through mistake had been sent to her, but which he had meant for Madame de Nucingen. [A Study of Woman.] After the Revolution of July he was a guest at Mademoiselle des Touches's evening party, where Marsay told the story of his first love. [Another Study of Woman.] At this time he was intimate with Raphael de Valentin, and expected to marry an Alsatian. [The Magic Skin.] In 1832, Rastignac, having been appointed a baron, was under-secretary of state in the department of which Marsay was the minister. [The Secrets of a Princess.] In 1833-34, he volunteered as nurse at the bedside of the dying minister, in the hope of being remembered in his will. One evening about this same time he took Raoul Nathan and Emile Blondet, whom he had met in society, to supper with him at Very's. He then advised Nathan to profit by the advances made him by the Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse. [A Daughter of Eve.] In 1833, at the Princesse de Cadignan's home, in the presence of the Marquise d'Espard, the old Ducs de Lenoncourt and de Navarreins, the Comte and the Comtesse de Vandenesse, D'Arthez, two ambassadors, and two well-known orators of the Chamber of Peers, Rastignac heard his minister reveal the secrets of the abduction of Senator Malin, an affair which took place in 1806. [The Gondreville Mystery.] In 1836, having become enriched by the third Nucingen failure, in which he was more or less a willing accomplice, he became possessed of an income of forty thousand francs. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In 1838 he attended the opening reception given at Josepha's mansion on rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. He was also witness at Hortense Hulot's marriage to Wenceslas Steinbock. He married Augusta de Nucingen, daughter of Delphine de Nucingen, his former mistress, whom he had quitted five years previously. In 1839, Rastignac, minister once more, and this time of public works, was made count almost in spite of himself. In 1845 he was, moreover, made a peer. He had then an income of 300,000 francs. He was in the habit of saying: "There is no absolute virtue, all things are dependent on circumstances." [Cousin Betty. The Member for Arcis. The Unconscious Humorists.]

[*] In a recent publication of Monsieur S. de Lovenjoul, he speaks of
a recent abridged biography of Eugene de Rastignac.

RASTIGNAC (Laure-Rose and Agathe de),[*] sisters of Eugene de Rastignac; second and third children of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac; Laure, the elder, born in 1801; Agathe, the second, born in 1802; both were reared unostentatiously in the Rastignac chateau. In 1819 they sent what they had saved by economy to their brother Eugene, then a student. Several years after, when he was wealthy and powerful, he married one of them to Martial de la Roche-Hugon, the other to a minister. In 1821, Laure, with her father and mother, was present at a reception of M. de Bargeton's, where she admired Lucien de Rubempre. [Father Goriot. Lost Illusions.] Madame de la Roche-Hugon in 1839 took her several daughters to a children's dance at Madame de l'Estorade's in Paris. [The Member for Arcis.]

[*] The Mesdemoiselles de Rastignac are here placed together under
their maiden name, as it is not known which one married Martial de
la Roche-Hugon.

RASTIGNAC (Monseigneur Gabriel de), brother of Eugene de Rastignac; one of the youngest two children of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac; was private secretary to the Bishop of Limoges towards the end of the Restoration, during the trial of Tascheron. In 1832 he became, when only a young man of thirty, a bishop. He was consecrated by the Archbishop Dutheil. [Father Goriot. The Country Parson. A Daughter of Eve.]

RASTIGNAC (Henri de), the fifth child, probably of the Baron de Rastignac and his wife. Nothing is known of his life. [Father Goriot.]

RATEL, gendarme in the Orne district; in 1809, along with his fellow-officer, Mallet, was charged with the capture of "Lady" Bryond des Miniares, who was implicated in the affair known as the "Chauffeurs de Mortagne." He found the fugitive, but, instead of arresting her, allowed himself to be unduly influenced by her, and then protected her and let her escape. This action on his part was known to Mallet. Ratel, when imprisoned, confessed all, and committed suicide before the time assigned for trial. [The Seamy Side of History.]

RAVENOUILLET, porter in Bixiou's house, at No. 112 rue Richelieu, in 1845; son of a Carcassonne grocer; a steward throughout his life and owed his first position to his fellow-countryman, Massol. Ravenouillet, although uneducated was not unintelligent. According to Bixiou, he was the "Providence at thirty per cent" of the seventy-one lodgers in the house, through whom he netted in the neighborhood of six thousand francs a month. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

RAVENOUILLET (Madame), wife of the preceding. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

RAVENOUILLET (Lucienne), daughter of the preceding couple, was in 1845 a pupil in the Paris Conservatory of Music. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

REGNAULD (Baron) (1754-1829), celebrated artist, member of the Institute. Joseph Bridau, when fourteen, was a frequent visitor at his studio, in 1812-1813. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

REGNAULT, former chief clerk to Maitre Roguin, a Paris notary; came to Vendome in 1816 and purchased there a notaryship. He was called by Madame de Merret to her death-bed, and was made her executor. In this position, some years later, he urged Doctor Bianchon to respect one of the last wishes of the deceased by discontinuing his promenades in the Grande Breteche garden, as she had wished this property to remain entirely unused for half a century. Maitre Regnault married a wealthy cousin of Vendome. Regnault was tall and slender, with sloping forehead, small pointed head and wan complexion. He frequently used the expression, "One moment." [La Grande Breteche.]

REGNIER (Claude-Antoine), Duc de Massa, born in 1746, died 1814; an advocate, and afterwards deputy to the Constituency; was high justice --justice of the peace--during the celebrated trial of the Simeuses and Hauteserres, accused of the abduction of Senator Malin. He noticed the talent displayed by Granville for the defendants, and a little later, having met him at Archchancelor Cambaceres's house, he took the young barrister into his own carriage, setting him down on the Quai des Augustins, at the young man's door, after giving him some practical advice and assuring him of his protection. [The Gondreville Mystery. A Second Home.]

REMONENCQ, an Auvergnat, dealer in old iron, established on rue de Normandie, in the house in which Pons and Schmucke lived, and where the Cibots were porters. Remonencq, who had come to Paris with the intention of being a porter, ran errands between 1825 and 1831 for the dealers in curiosities on Boulevard Beaumarchais and the coppersmiths on rue de Lappe, then opened in this same quarter a small shop for odds and ends. He lived there in sordid economy. He had been in Sylvain Pons's house, and had fully recognized the great value of the aged collector's treasures. His greed urged him to crime, and he instigated Madame Cibot in her theft at the Pons house. After receiving his share of the property, he poisoned the husband of the portress, in order to marry the widow, with whom he established a curiosity shop in an excellent building on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. About 1846 he unwittingly poisoned himself with a glass of vitriol, which he had placed near his wife. [Cousin Pons.]

REMONENCQ (Mademoiselle), sister of the preceding, "a kind of idiot with a vacant stare, dressed like a Japanese idol." She was her brother's house-keeper. [Cousin Pons.]

REMONENCQ (Madame), born in 1796, at one time a beautiful oyster-woman of the "Cadran Bleu" in Paris; married for love the porter-tailor, Cibot, in 1828, and lived with him in the porter's lodge of a house on rue de Normandie, belonging to Claude-Joseph Pillerault. In this house the musicians, Pons and Schmucke, lived. She busied herself for some time with the management of the house and the cooking for these two celibates. At first she was faithful, but finally, moved by Remonencq, and encouraged by Fontaine, the necromancer, she robbed the ill-fated Pons. Her husband having been poisoned, without her knowledge, by Remonencq, she married the second-hand dealer, now a dealer in curiosities, and proprietor of the beautiful shop on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. She survived her second husband. [Cousin Pons.]

REMY (Jean), peasant of Arcis-sur-Aube, against whom a neighbor lost a lawsuit concerning a boundary line. This neighbor, who was given to drink, used strong language in speaking against Jean Remy in a session of the electors who had organized in the interest of Dorlange-Sallenauve, a candidate, in the month of April, 1839. If we may believe this neighbor, Jean Remy was a wife-beater, and had a daughter who had obtained, through the influence of a deputy, and apparently without any claim, an excellent tobacco-stand on rue Mouffetard. [The Member for Arcis.]

RENARD, former captain in the Imperial army, withdrew to Issoudun during the Restoration; one of the officers in the Faubourg de Rome, who were hostile to the "pekins" and partisans of Maxence (Max) Gilet. Renard and Commandant Potel were seconds for Maxence in his duel with Philippe Bridau--a duel which resulted in the former's death. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

RENARD, regimental quartermaster in the cavalry, 1812. Although educated as a notary he became an under officer. He had the face of a girl and was considered a "wheedler." He saved the life of his friend, Genestas, several times, but enticed away from him a Polish Jewess, whom he loved, married in Sarmatian fashion, and left enceinte. When fatally wounded in the battle against the Russians, just before the battle of Lutzen, in his last hours, to Genestas, he acknowledged having betrayed the Jewess, and begged this gentleman to marry her and claim the child, which would soon be born. This was done by the innocent officer. Renard was the son of a Parisian wholesale grocer, a "toothless shark," who would not listen to anything concerning the quartermaster's offspring. [The Country Doctor.]

RENARD (Madame). (See Genestas, Madame.)

RENARD (Adrien). (See Genestas, Adrien.)

RENE, the only servant to M. du Bousquier of Alencon, in 1816; a silly Breton servant, who, although very greedy, was perfectly reliable. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

RESTAUD (Comte de), a man whose sad life was first brought to the notice of Barchou de Penhoen, a school-mate of Dufaure and Lambert; born about 1780; husband of Anastasie Goriot, by whom he was ruined; died in December, 1824, while trying to adjust matters favorably for his eldest son, Ernest, the only one of Madame de Restaud's three children whom he recognized as his own. To this end he had pretended that, having been very extravagant, he was greatly in debt to Gobseck. He assured his son by another letter of the real condition of his estate. M. de Restaud, was similar in appearance to the Duc de Richelieu, and had the proud manners of the statesman of the aristocratic faubourg. [Gobseck. Father Goriot.]

RESTAUD (Comtesse Anastasie de), wife of the preceding; elder daughter of the vermicelli-maker, Jean-Joachim Goriot; a beautiful brunette of queenly bearing and manners. Like the fair and gentle Madame de Nucingen, her sister, she showed herself severe and ungrateful towards the kindliest and weakest of fathers. She had three children, two boys and a girl; Ernest, the eldest, being the only legitimate one. She ruined herself for Trailles, her lover's benefit, selling her jewels to Gobseck and endangering her children's future. As soon as her husband had breathed his last, in a moment anxiously awaited, she took from under his pillow and burned the papers which she believed contrary to her own interests and those of her two natural children. It thus followed that Gobseck, the fictitious creditor, gained a claim on all of the remaining property. [Gobseck. Father Goriot.]

RESTAUD (Ernest de), eldest child of the preceding, and their only legitimate one, as the other two were natural children of Maxime de Trailles. In 1824, while yet a child, he received from his dying father instruction to hand to Derville, the attorney, a sealed package which contained his will; but Madame de Restaud, by means of her maternal authority, kept Ernest from carrying out his promise. On attaining his majority, after his fortune had been restored to him by his father's fictitious creditor, Gobseck, he married Camille de Grandlieu, who reciprocated his love for her. As a result of this marriage Ernest de Restaud became connected with the Legitimists, while his brother Felix, who had almost attained the position of minister under Louis Philippe, followed the opposite party. [Gobseck. The Member for Arcis.]

RESTAUD (Madame Ernest de), born Camille de Grandlieu in 1813, daughter of the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu. During the first years of Louis Philippe's reign, while very young, she fell in love with and married Ernest de Restaud, who was then a minor. [Gobseck. The Member for Arcis.]

RESTAUD (Felix-Georges de), one of the younger children of the Comte and Comtesse de Restaud; probably a natural son of Maxime de Trailles. In 1839, Felix de Restaud was chief secretary to his cousin Eugene de Rastignac, minister of public works. [Gobseck. The Member for Arcis.]

RESTAUD (Pauline de), legal daughter of the Comte and Comtesse de Restaud, but probably the natural daughter of Maxime de Trailles. We know nothing of her life. [Gobseck.]

REYBERT (De), captain in the Seventh regiment of artillery under the Empire; born in the Messin country. During the Restoration he lived in Presles, Seine-et-Oise, with his wife and daughter, on only six hundred francs pension. As a neighbor of Moreau, manager of the Comte de Serizy's estate, he detected the steward in some extortions, and sending his wife to the count, denounced the guilty man. He was chosen as Moreau's successor. Reybert married his daughter, without furnishing her a dowry, to the wealthy farmer Leger. [A Start in Life.]

REYBERT (Madame de), born Corroy, in Messin, wife of the preceding, and like him of noble family. Her face was pitted by small-pox until it looked like a skimmer; her figure was tall and spare; her eyes were bright and clear; she was straight as a stick; she was a strict Puritan, and subscribed to the Courrier Francais. She paid a visit to the Comte de Serizy, and unfolded to him Moreau's extortions, thus obtaining for her husband the stewardship of Presles. [A Start in Life.]

RHETORE (Duc Alphonse de), eldest son of the Duc and Duchess de Chaulieu, he became an ambassador in the diplomatic service. For many years during the Restoration he kept Claudine Chaffaroux, called Tullia, the star dancing-girl at the Opera, who married Bruel in 1824. He became acquainted with Lucien de Rubempre, both in his own circle of acquaintance and in the world of gallantry, and entertained him one evening in his box at a first performance at the Ambigu in 1821. He reproached his guest for having wounded Chatelet and Madame de Bargeton by his newspaper satire, and at the same time, while addressing him continually as Chardon, he counseled the young man to become a Royalist, in order that Louis XVIII. might restore to him the title and name of Rubempres, his maternal ancestors. The Duc de Rhetore, however, disliked Lucien de Rubempre, and a little later at a performance in the Italiens, he traduced him to Madame de Serizy, who was really in love with the poet. [A Bachelor's Establishment. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Letters of Two Brides.] In 1835, he married the Duchesse d'Argaiolo, born the Princesse Soderini, a woman of great beauty and fortune. [Albert Savarus.] In 1839, he had a duel with Dorlange-Sallenauve, having provoked the latter, by speaking in a loud voice, which he knew could be easily understood, and slandering Marie Gaston, second husband of Dorlange's sister, Louise de Chaulieu. Dorlange was wounded. [The Member for Arcis.]

RHETORE (Duchess de), born Francesca Soderini in 1802; a very beautiful and wealthy Florentine; married, when very young, by her father, to the Duc d'Argaiolo, who was also very rich and much older than herself. In Switzerland or Italy she became acquainted with Albert Savarus, when, as a result of political events, she and her husband were proscribed and deprived of their property. The Duchesse d'Argaiolo and Albert Savarus loved platonically, and Francesca-like she promised her hand to her Francois whenever she should become a widow. In 1835, having been widowed for some time, and, as a result of Rosalie de Watteville's plots, believing herself forgotten and betrayed by Savarus, from whom she had received no news, she gave her hand to the Duc de Rhetore, the ex-ambassador. The marriage took place in the month of May at Florence and was celebrated with much pomp. The Duchesse d'Argaiolo is pictured under the name of the Princesse Gandolphini in "L'Ambitieux par Amour," published in 1834 by the Revue de l'Est. Under Louis Philippe, the Duchesse de Rhetore became acquainted with Mademoiselle de Watteville at a charity entertainment. On their second meeting, which took place at the Opera ball, Mademoiselle de Watteville revealed her own ill-doings and vindicated Savarus. [Albert Savarus.]

RICHARD (Veuve), a Nemours woman from whom Ursule Mirouet, afterwards Vicomtesse de Portenduere, after the death of Doctor Minoret, her guardian, purchased a house to occupy. [Ursule Mirouet.]

RIDAL (Fulgence), dramatic author; member of the Cenacle, which held its sessions at D'Arthez's home on rue des Quatre-Vents, during the Restoration. He disparaged Leon Giraud's beliefs, went under a Rabelaisian guise, careless, lazy and skeptical, also inclined to be melancholy and happy at the same time; nick-named by his friends the "Regimental Dog." Fulgence Ridal and Joseph Bridau, with other members of the Cenacle, were present at an evening party given by Madame Veuve Bridau, in 1819, to celebrate the return of her son Philippe from Texas. [A Bachelor's Establishment. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] In 1845, having been a vaudevillist, he was given the direction of a theatre in association with Lousteau. He had influencial government friends. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

RIFFE, copying-clerk in the Financial Bureau, who had charge of the "personnel." [The Government Clerks.]

RIFOOEL. (See Vissard, Chevalier du.)

RIGANSON, called Biffon, also Chanoine, constituted with La Biffe, his mistress, one of the most important couples in his class of society. When a convict he met Jacques Collin, called Vautrin, and in May, 1830, saw him once more at the Conciergerie, at the time of the judical investigation succeeding Esther Gobseck's death. Riganson was short of stature, fat, and with livid skin, and an eye black and sunken. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

RIGOU (Gregoire), born in 1756; at one time a Benedictine friar. Under the Republic he married Arsene Pichard, only heir of the rich Cure Niseron. He became a money-lender; filled the office of mayor of Blangy, Bourgogne, up to 1821, when he was succeeded by Montcornet. On the arrival of the general in the country Rigou endeavored to be friendly with him, but having been quickly slighted, he became one of the Montcornets' most dangerous enemies, along with Gaubertin, mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, and Soudry, mayor of Soulanges. This triumvirate succeeded in arousing the peasants against the owner of Aigues, and the local citizens having become more or less opposed to him, the general sold his property, and it fell to the three associates. Rigou was selfish, avaricious but pleasure-loving; he looked like a condor. His name was often the subject of a pun, and he was called Grigou (G. Rigou--a miserly man). "Deep as a monk, silent as a Benedictine, crafty as a priest, this man would have been a Tiberius in Rome, a Richelieu under Louis XIII. or a Fouche under the Convention." [The Peasantry.]

RIGOU (Madame), born Arsene Pichard, wife of the preceding, niece of a maid named Pichard, who was house-keeper for Cure Niseron under the Revolution, and whom she succeeded as house-keeper. She inherited, together with her aunt, some money from a wealthy priest. She was known while young by the name of La Belle Arsene. She had great influence over the cure, although she could neither read nor write. After her marriage with Rigou, she became the old Benedictine's slave. She lost her Rubens-like freshness, her magical figure, her beautiful teeth and the lustre of her eyes when she gave birth to her daughter, who eventually became the wife of Soudry (fils). Madame Rigou quietly bore the continued infidelity of her husband, who always had pretty maids in his household. [The Peasantry.]