A Zola Dictionary Part 10

COGNET, a roadman at Rognes. He was an old drunkard, who beat his daughter unmercifully. La Terre.

COGNET (JACQUELINE), alias LA COGNETTE, daughter of the preceding. She went to La Borderie at the age of twelve years, and before long had several lovers. She made her fortune, however, by resisting her master, Alexandre Hourdequin, for six months, and when she ultimately became his mistress she had made her position so secure that he was afterwards unable to part with her. Notwithstanding her relations with Hourdequin, she had other lovers, and the old shepherd Soulas, from motives of revenge, informed Hourdequin of her intimacy with one of them, a man named Tron. The latter, having been dismissed, killed Hourdequin and burned down the farm, so that Jacqueline was compelled to leave La Borderie no richer than she had come. La Terre.

COLICHE (LA), a fine cow which belonged to the Mouche family and was a great favourite with them. La Terre.

COLIN, a notary at Havre. It was in his presence that the Roubauds made a mutual will, leaving everything to the last survivor. La Bete Humaine.

COLOMBAN PERE, a veterinary surgeon known to all in the district of Seine-et-Oise. He was of dissolute habits. Au Bonheur des Dames.

COLOMBAN, a shopman who had been for many years in the employment of M. Baudu. He was engaged to his master's daughter Genevieve, but the marriage was put off from time to time as Baudu's business was not prosperous. Meantime, Colomban had become infatuated by Clara Prunaire, a girl employed in "The Ladies' Paradise," and his affection for Genevieve rapidly cooled. Ultimately he went off with Clara, thereby hastening the death of Genevieve, who had been in bad health for some time. Au Bonheur des Dames.

COLOMBE. See Pere Colombe.

COMBELOT (M. DE), an Imperial Chamberlain whom the Department of the Landes had chosen as deputy upon the formally expressed desire of the Emperor. He was a tall, handsome man, with a very white skin, and an inky black beard, which had been the means of winning him great favour among the ladies. He was married to a sister of Delestang. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

COMBELOT (MADAME DE), see Henriette Delestang.

COMBETTE, a chemist at Chene-Populeux. He was a.s.sessor to the mayor, and the information which he received on the night of 27th August, 1870, satisfied him of the unhappy state of the Army of Chalons, which was then on its way to the front. La Debacle.

COMBETTE (MADAME), wife of the preceding. It was she who on the evening of 27th August, 1870, offered hospitality to the soldier Maurice Leva.s.seur, who was worn out with fatigue and with the pain of his foot, which had been injured by the long march. La Debacle.

COMBEVILLE (d.u.c.h.eSSE DE), mother of Princess d'Orviedo. L'Argent.

COMBOREL ET CIE, a firm of ship-owners who entered into the great transport syndicate founded by Aristide Saccard. L'Argent.

COMPAN (ABBE), vicar of the church of Saint-Saturnin at Pla.s.sans. He was on bad terms with Abbe Fenil, and consequently the other priests were afraid to have any intercourse with him, Abbe Bourrette alone visiting him during his last illness. La Conquete de Pla.s.sans.

CONDAMIN (M. DE), commissioner of woods and rivers for the district of Pla.s.sans. He was an elderly man, whose morality was looked upon with some suspicion by the respectable inhabitants of Pla.s.sans. He married a young wife, whom he brought from no one knew where, but who had evidently influential friends at Paris, as it was she who got her husband and Dr. Porquier decorated. La Conquete de Pla.s.sans.

CONDAMIN (MADAME DE), wife of the preceding. She was at first received with some suspicion at Pla.s.sans, nothing being known of her past history, but by the charm of her manner she soon overcame prejudice.

Madame Mouret having asked her a.s.sistance in connection with the Home for Girls proposed by Abbe Faujas, she entered heartily into the scheme and used her influence on its behalf. Acting on advice from her influential friends at Paris, she a.s.sisted Faujas in the schemes which resulted in the election of M. Delangre as deputy for Pla.s.sans. La Conquete de Pla.s.sans.

CONIN, a stationer at the corner of Rue Feydeau, who supplied note-books to most members of the Bourse. He was a.s.sisted in the business by his wife, and seldom came out of the back shop. L'Argent.

CONIN (MADAME), wife of the preceding. She was on too friendly terms with many of her customers, but was so discreet that no scandal arose.

L'Argent.

COQUART (LES), proprietors of the farm of Saint-Juste, which, however, they were forced by bad times to sell. The family consisted of the father, mother, three sons and two daughters. La Terre.

COQUETS, neighbours of the Lorilleux in Rue de la Goutte-d'Or. They took a fancy to light their cooking-stove on the stair-landing, and, as they also owed their term's rent, they were given notice to quit.

L'a.s.sommoir.

CORBIERE (COMTE DE), proprietor of the Paradou, an estate near Artaud.

When he died, the care of the property was confided to Jeanbernat, a foster-brother of the Comte. La Faute de l'Abbe Mouret.

CORBREUSE (DUC DE), proprietor of a racing-stable. Nana.

CORNAILLE, the princ.i.p.al draper in Valognes. Denise Baudu served her apprenticeship to him. Au Bonheur des Dames.

CORNEMUSE, a racehorse which was the prize of the City of Paris. Nana.

CORNILLE, a member of the firm of Cornille and Jenard, who held in the eighteenth century the mineral concession of Joiselle, which was joined in 1760 to two neighbouring concessions, those of Comte de Cougny and of Baron Desrumaux, in order to form the Company of the Mines of Montsou.

Germinal.

CORNILLE (ABBE), one of the clergy of the cathedral of Beaumont. He accompanied Monseigneur d'Hautecoeur when the latter came to administer the last rites of the Church to Angelique. Le Reve.

CORREUR (MADAME MELANIE), was the daughter of a notary of Coulonges, a town in the district of Niort. When she was twenty-four years old she eloped with a journeyman butcher, and thereafter lived in Paris, ignored by her family. For some time she kept a boarding-house at the Hotel Vanneau in the Rue Vanneau, where among her lodgers were Eugene Rougon, Du Poizet, and Theodore Gilquin. She established a claim on Rougon's grat.i.tude, and he a.s.sisted a number of her friends in obtaining pensions and appointments. Having ascertained that her brother, M. Martineau, had made a will by which she would benefit, she, knowing him to be in bad health, denounced him to Rougon as a dangerous Republican. His arrest and sudden death followed. Son Excellence Eugene Rougon.

COSINUS, a racehorse which ran in the Grand Prix de Paris. Nana.

COSSARD (LE PERE), prompter at the Theatre des Varietes. He was a little hunchback.

COUDELOUP (MADAME), a baker in Rue des Poissonniers. She supplied the Coupeaus until Lantier decided that they must have finer bread from a Viennese bakery. L'a.s.sommoir.

COUGNY (COMTE DE), owner in the eighteenth century of the mining concession of Cougny, which in 1760 was joined to two neighbouring concessions to form the Company of the Mines of Montsou. Germinal.

COUILLOT (LES), peasants at Rognes. Their son got the number 206 in the drawing for the conscription. La Terre.

COUPEAU, a zinc-worker, who married Gervaise Macquart after her desertion by Lantier. He was the son of a drunken father, but was himself steady and industrious until a serious accident caused by a fall from a roof brought about a change. After that he became unwilling to work and began to spend his time in public-houses; his days of work became fewer and fewer, until, a confirmed drunkard, he lived entirely on his wife's earnings. Attacks of delirium tremens followed, and in the end he died in the Asylum of Sainte-Anne after an attack of more than usual violence. L'a.s.sommoir.

COUPEAU (MADAME GERVAISE), wife of the preceding. See Gervaise Macquart.

L'a.s.sommoir.

COUPEAU (ANNA, known as NANA), born 1852, was the only child of Coupeau and Gervaise Macquart, his wife. Almost from infancy she was allowed to run wild in the gutters of Paris, and even in childhood her instincts were vicious. At thirteen years of age she was sent to learn artificial-flower making in the establishment of Madame t.i.treville, whose forewoman was Madame Lerat, Nana's aunt. She had been there some time when she began to receive attentions from an elderly gentleman who had noticed her going to work. Meantime her father and mother had taken to drink so seriously that home life had become intolerable, and, after one of innumerable quarrels, Nana ran away to her venerable admirer.

After a few months she tired of him and left, to spend her time amongst the low-cla.s.s dancing-halls, in one of which she was found by her father, who brought her home, where she remained for a fortnight, and then ran off again. From time to time she returned, but her visits gradually became less frequent till they ceased. L'a.s.sommoir.

At sixteen years of age she had a child by an unknown father, and two years later was installed in a flat in Boulevard Haussmann by a rich merchant of Moscow, who had come to pa.s.s the winter in Paris. Bordenave, the director of the Theatre des Varietes, gave her a part in a play called _La Blonde Venus_, and though her voice was poor and she was ignorant of acting, she was by the sheer force of her beauty an immediate and overwhelming success. All Paris was at her feet; Comte m.u.f.fat, Steiner, the Prince of Scots himself, came in turn to offer homage. It seemed as if this girl, born of four or five generations of drunkards and brought up on the pavements of Paris, was to revenge her race upon the idle rich by the wild extravagances into which she dragged them. m.u.f.fat and Steiner were her lovers, and ruined themselves by the vast sums which she squandered; Georges Hugon killed himself from jealousy of his brother Philippe, who embezzled for her sake, and brought himself to imprisonment and disgrace; Vandeuvres too, after courting dishonour, met death at his own hand; and Foucarmont, stripped bare and cast off, went to perish in the China seas. The procession was unending; more money was always required. After a successful appearance in a play called _Melusine_, Nana suddenly left Paris and went to the East. Strange stories were told of her--the conquest of a viceroy, a colossal fortune acquired in Russia--but nothing definite was known.

When she returned to Paris in 1870 she found that her son Louiset had been attacked by small-pox, and she herself contracted the disease from him. A few days later she died in a room in the Grand Hotel, nursed only by Rose Mignon, who had come to her in her trouble. The war with Germany had just broken out, and as she lay dying the pa.s.sing crowds were shouting ceaselessly, "A Berlin, A Berlin." Nana.

COUPEAU (LOUIS). See Louiset.

COUPEAU (MADAME), mother of Coupeau the zinc-worker. She was an old woman, and, her sight having given way, was unable to support herself.

Her daughter, Madame Lorilleux, refused anything but the most trifling a.s.sistance, and ultimately Gervaise Coupeau took the old woman into her own home and supported her till her death, which occurred some years later. L'a.s.sommoir.

COURAJOD, a great landscape painter, whose masterpiece, the _Pool at Gagny_, is in the Luxembourg. Long before his death he disappeared from the world of art, and lived in a little house at Montmartre surrounded by his hens, ducks, rabbits, and dogs. He refused to speak of his former fame, and when Claude Lantier called on him the old man seemed to be entering into a second childhood, forgetful of his past. L'Oeuvre.

COUTARD, a soldier of infantry who belonged to the Second Division of the First Army Corps, which was defeated at Wissembourg on 4th August, 1870. He and his companion Picot were slightly wounded, and were left behind, not being able to rejoin their regiments for three weeks, most of which they spent tramping the country through wet and mud, endeavouring to overtake the vanquished army of France. La Debacle.

CRa.s.sE (LA), i.e. "The Dirty." Sobriquet of a professor at the college of Pla.s.sans, so called by the pupils as he marked by the constant rubbing of his head the back of every chair he occupied. L'Oeuvre.

CREVECOEUR, a lace merchant in Rue Mail. Henri Deloche left his employment, and entered Octave Mouret's shop on the same day as Denise Baudu. Au Bonheur des Dames.

CRON, a carter at Vendome. He was the father of Leonie Cron. L'Argent.

CRON (LEONIE), the girl to whom the Comte de Beauvilliers gave the doc.u.ment which afterwards came into the hands of Busch, and was used by him as a means of blackmailing the widow of the Comte. L'Argent.

CUCHE, a family of fisher people who resided at Bonneville. They were ruined by their house being washed away by the sea. The father and mother lived extremely dissolute lives, and their son grew up little better than a savage. Pauline Quenu made great efforts to reform him, but he refused all attempts to make him settle down. La Joie de Vivre.

CUDORGE (MADAME), a seller of umbrellas in the Rue Neuve de la Goutte d'Or, where she was a neighbour of Gervaise Lantier. L'a.s.sommoir.