Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 13

COTTIN (Francine), a Breton woman, probably born at Fougeres in 1773; chambermaid and confidante of Mlle. de Verneuil, who had been reared by Francine's parents. Childhood's friend of Marche-a-Terre, with whom she used her influence to save the life of her mistress during the ma.s.sacre of the "Blues" at the Vivitiere in 1799. [The Chouans.]

COUDRAI (Du), register of mortgages at Alencon, time of Louis XVIII. A caller at the home of Mlle. Cormon, and afterwards at that of M. du Bousquier, who married "the old maid." One of the town's most open-hearted men; his only faults were having married a rich old lady who was unendurable, and the habit of making villainous puns at which he was first to laugh. In 1824 M. du Coudrai was poverty-stricken; he had lost his place on account of voting the wrong way. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

COUPIAU, Breton courier from Mayenne to Fougeres in 1799. In the struggle between the "Blues" and the Chouans he took no part, but acted as circ.u.mstances demanded and for his own interests. Indeed he offered no resistance when the "Brigands" stole the government chests.

Coupiau was nick-named Mene-a-Bien by Marche-a-Terre the Chouan. [The Chouans.]

COUPIAU (Sulpice), Chouan and probably the father of Coupiau the messenger. Killed in 1799 in the battle of La Pelerine or at the seige of Fougeres. [The Chouans.]

COURAND (Jenny), florist; mistress of Felix Gaudissart in 1831. At that time she lived in Paris on rue d'Artois. [Gaudissart the Great.]

COURCEUIL (Felix), of Alencon, retired army surgeon of the Rebel forces of the Vendee. In 1809 he furnished arms to the "Brigands."

Involved in the trial known as "Chauffeurs of Mortagne." Condemned to death for contumacy. [The Seamy Side of History.]

COURNANT, notary at Provins in 1827; rival of Auffray, the notary; of the Opposition; one of the few public-spirited men of the little town.

[Pierrette.]

COURTECUISSE, game-keeper of the Aigues estate in Burgundy under the Empire and Restoration until 1823. Born about 1777; at first in the service of Mlle. Laguerre; discharged by General de Montcornet for absolute incapacity, and replaced by keepers who were trusty and true.

Courtecuisse was a little fellow with a face like a full moon. He was never so happy as when idle. On leaving he demanded a sum of eleven hundred francs which was not due him. His master indignantly denied his claim at first, but yielded the point, however, on being threatened with a lawsuit, the scandal of which he wished to avoid.

Courtecuisse, out of a job, purchased from Rigou for two thousand francs the little property of La Bachelerie, enclosed in the Aigues estate, and wearied himself, without gain, in the management of his land. He had a daughter who was tolerably pretty and eighteen years old in 1823. At this time she was in the service of Mme. Mariotte the elder, at Auxerre. Courtecuisse was given the sobriquet of "Courtebotte"--short-boot. [The Peasantry.]

COURTECUISSE (Madame), wife of the preceding; in abject fear of the miser, Gregoire Rigou, mayor of Blangy, Burgundy. [The Peasantry.]

COURTEVILLE (Madame de), cousin of Comte de Bauvan on the maternal side; widow of a judge of the Seine Court. She had a very beautiful daughter, Amelie, whom the comte wished to marry to his secretary, Maurice de l'Hostal. [Honorine.]

COURTOIS, Marsac miller, near Angouleme during the Restoration. In 1821 rumor had it that he intended to wed a miller's widow, his patroness, who was thirty-two years old. She had one hundred thousand francs in her own right. David Sechard was advised by his father to ask the hand of this rich widow. At the end of 1822 Courtois, now married, sheltered Lucien de Rubempre, returning almost dead from Paris. [Lost Illusions.]

COURTOIS (Madame), wife of the preceding, who cared sympathetically for Lucien de Rubempre, on his return. [Lost Illusions.]

COUSSARD (Laurent). (See Goussard, Laurent.)

COUTELIER, a creditor of Maxime de Trailles. The Coutelier credit, purchased for five hundred francs by the Claparon-Cerizet firm, came to thirty-two hundred francs, seventy-five centimes, capital, interest and costs. It was recovered by Cerizet by means of a strategy worthy of a Scapin. [A Man of Business.]

COUTURE, a kind of financier-journalist of an equivocal reputation; born about 1797. One of Mme. Schontz's earliest friends; and she alone remained faithful to him when he was ruined by the downfall of the ministry of March 1st, 1840. Couture was always welcome at the home of the courtesan, who dreamed, perhaps, of making him her husband. But he presented Fabien du Ronceret to her and the "lorette" married him. In 1836, in company with Finot and Blondet, he was present in a private room of a well-known restaurant when Jean-Jacques Bixiou related the origin of the Nucingen fortune. At the time of his transient wealth Couture splendidly maintained Jenny Cadine. At one time he was celebrated for his waistcoats. He had no known relationship with the widow Couture. [Beatrix. The Firm of Nucingen.] The financier drew upon himself the hatred of Cerizet for having deceived him in a deal about the purchase of lands and houses situated in the suburbs of the Madeleine, an affair in which Jerome Thuillier was afterwards concerned. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

COUTURE (Madame), widow of an ordonnance-commissary of the French Republic. Relative and protectress of Mlle. Victorine Taillefer with whom she lived at the Vauquer pension, in 1819. [Father Goriot.]

COUTURIER (Abbe), curate of Saint-Leonard church at Alencon, time of Louis XVIII. Spiritual adviser of Mlle. Cormon, remaining her confessor after her marriage with Du Bousquier, and influencing her in the way of excessive penances. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

CREMIERE, tax-collector at Nemours during the Restoration. Nephew by marriage of Dr. Minoret, who had secured the position for him, furnishing his security. One of the three collateral heirs of the old physician, the two others being Minoret-Levrault, the postmaster, and Ma.s.sin-Levrault, copy-clerk to the justice of the peace. In the curious branching of these four Gatinais bourgeois families--the Minorets, the Ma.s.sins, the Levraults and the Cremieres--the tax collector belonged to the Cremiere-Cremiere branch. He had several children, among others a daughter named Angelique. After the Revolution of July, 1830, he became munic.i.p.al councillor. [Ursule Mirouet.]

CREMIERE (Madame), nee Ma.s.sin-Ma.s.sin, wife of the tax-collector, and niece of Dr. Minoret--that is, daughter of the old physician's sister.

A stout woman with a muddy blonde complexion splotched with freckles.

Pa.s.sed for an educated person on account of her novel-reading. Her _lapsi linguoe_ were maliciously spread abroad by Goupil, the notary's clerk, who labelled them, "Capsulinguettes"; indeed, Mme. Cremiere thus translated the two Latin words. [Ursule Mirouet.]

CREMIERE-DIONIS, always called Dionis, which name see.

CREVEL (Celestin), born between 1786 and 1788; clerked for Cesar Birotteau the perfumer--first as second clerk, then as head-clerk when Popinot left the house to set up in business for himself. After his patron's failure in 1819, he purchased for five thousand seven hundred francs, "The Queen of Roses," making his own fortune thereby. During the reign of Louis Philippe he lived on his income. Captain, then chief of battalion in the National Guard; officer of the Legion of Honor; mayor of one of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nts of Paris, he ended up by being a very great personage. He had married the daughter of a farmer of Brie; became a widower in 1833, when he gave himself over to a life of pleasure. He maintained Josepha, who was taken away from him by his friend, Baron Hulot. To avenge himself he tried to win Mme. Hulot. He "protected" Heloise Brisetout. Finally he was smitten with Mme.

Marneffe, whom he had for mistress and afterwards married when she became a widow in 1843. In May of this same year, Crevel and his wife died of a horrible disease which had been communicated to Valerie by a negro belonging to Montes the Brazilian. In 1838 Crevel lived on rue des Saussaies; at the same time he owned a little house on rue du Dauphin, where he had prepared a secret chamber for Mme. Marneffe; this last house he leased to Maxime de Trailles. Besides these Crevel owned: a house on rue Barbet de Jouy; the Presles property bought of Mme. de Serizy at a cost of three million francs. He caused himself to be made a member of the General Council of Seine-et-Oise. By his first marriage he had an only daughter, Celestine, who married Victorin Hulot. [Cesar Birotteau. Cousin Betty.] In 1844-1845 Crevel owned a share in the management of the theatre directed by Gaudissart. [Cousin Pons.]

CREVEL (Celestine), only child of the first marriage of the preceding.

(See Hulot, Mme. Victorin.)

CREVEL (Madame Celestin), born Valerie Fortin in 1815; natural daughter of the Comte de Montcornet, marshal of France; married, first Marneffe, an employe in the War Office, with whom she broke faith by agreement with the clerk; and second, Celestin Crevel. She bore Marneffe a child, a stunted, scrawny urchin named Stanislas. An intimate friend of Lisbeth Fischer who utilized Valerie's irresistible attractions for the satisfying of her hatred towards her rich relatives. At this time Mme. Marneffe belonged jointly to Marneffe, to the Brazilian Montes, to Steinbock the Pole, to Celestin Crevel and to Baron Hulot. Each of these she held responsible for a child born in 1841, and which died on coming into the world. By prearrangement, she was surprised with Hulot by the police-commissioners, during this period, in Crevel's cottage on rue du Dauphin. After having lived with Marneffe on rue du Doyenne in the house occuped by Lisbeth Fischer --"Cousin Betty"--she was installed by Baron Hulot on rue Vaneau; then by Crevel in a mansion on rue Barbet-de-Jouy. She died in 1843, two days prior to Celestin. She perished while trying to "cajole G.o.d"--to use her own expression. She bequeathed, as a rest.i.tution, 300,000 francs to Hector Hulot. Valerie Marneffe did not lack spirit. Claude Vignon, the great critic, especially appreciated this woman's intellectual depravity. [Cousin Betty.]

CROCHARD, Opera dancer in the second half of the eighteenth century.

Director of theatrical evolutions. He commanded a band of a.s.sailants upon the Bastile, July 14, 1789; became an officer, a colonel, dying of wounds received at Lutzen, May 2, 1813. [A Second Home.]

CROCHARD (Madame), widow of the preceding. Before the Revolution she had sung with her husband in the chorus. In 1815 she lived wretchedly with her daughter Caroline, following the embroiderer's trade, in a house on rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean, which belonged to Molineux.

Wishing to find a protector for her daughter, Caroline, Mme. Crochard favored the attentions of the Comte de Granville. He rewarded her with a life-annuity of three thousand francs. She died, in 1822, in a comfortable lodging on rue Saint-Louis at Marais. She constantly wore on her breast the cross of chevalier of the Legion of Honor conferred on her husband by the Emperor. The widow Crochard, watched by an eager circle, received, at her last moments, a visit from Abbe Fontanon, confessor of the Comtesse de Granville, and was greatly troubled by the prelate's proceedings. [A Second Home.]

CROCHARD (Caroline), daughter of the proceding; born in 1797. For several years during the Restoration she was the mistress of Comte de Granville; at that time she was known as Mlle. de Bellefeuille, from the name of a small piece of property at Gatinais given to the young woman by an uncle of the comte who had taken a liking to her. Her lover installed her in an elegant apartment on rue Taitbout, where Esther Gobseck afterwards lived. Caroline Crochard abandoned M. de Granville and a good position for a needy young fellow named Solvet, who ran through with all her property. Sick and poverty-stricken in 1833, she lived in a wretched two-story house on rue Gaillon. She gave the Comte de Granville a son, Charles, and a daughter, Eugenie. [A Second Home.]

CROCHARD (Charles), illegitimate child of Comte de Granville and Caroline Crochard. In 1833 he was apprehended for a considerable theft, when he appealed to his father through the agency of Eugene de Granville, his half-brother. The comte gave the latter money enough to clear up the miserable business, if such were possible. [A Second Home.] The theft in question was committed at the home of Mlle.

Beaumesnil. He carried off her diamonds. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

CROISIER (Du). (See Bousquier, Du.)

CROIZEAU, former coachmaker to Bonaparte's Imperial court; had an income of about forty thousand francs; lived on rue Buffault; a widower without children. He was a constant visitor at Antonia Chocardelle's reading-room on rue Coquenard, time of Louis Philippe, and he offered to marry the "charming woman." [A Man of Business.]

CROTTAT (Monsieur and Madame), retired farmers; parents of the notary Crottat, a.s.sa.s.sinated by some thieves, among them being the notorious Dannepont, alias La Pouraille. The trial of this crime was called in May, 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] They were well-to-do folk and, according to Cesar Birotteau who knew them, old man Crottat was as "close as a snail." [Cesar Birotteau.]

CROTTAT (Alexandre), head-clerk of Maitre Roguin, and his successor in 1819, after the flight of the notary. He married the daughter of Lourdois, the painting-contractor. Cesar Birotteau thought for a time of making him his son-in-law. He called him, familiarly, "Xandrot."

Alexandre Crottat was a guest at the famous ball given by the perfumer in December, 1818. He was in friendly relations with Derville, the attorney, who commissioned him with a sort of half-pay for Colonel Chabert. He was also Comtesse Ferraud's notary at this time. [Cesar Birotteau. Colonel Chabert.] In 1822 he was notary to Comte de Serizy.

[A Start in Life.] He was also notary to Charles de Vandenesse; and one evening, at the home of the marquis, he made some awkward allusions which undoubtedly recalled unpleasant memories to his client and Mme. d'Aiglemont. Upon his return home he narrated the particulars to his wife, who chided him sharply. [A Woman of Thirty.] Alexandre Crottat and Leopold Hannequin signed the will dictated by Sylvain Pons on his death-bed. [Cousin Pons.]

CRUCHOT (Abbe), priest of Saumur; dignitary of the Chapter of Saint-Martin of Tours; brother of Cruchot, the notary; uncle of President Cruchot de Bonfons; the Talleyrand of his family; after much angling he induced Eugenie Grandet to wed the president in 1827.

[Eugenie Grandet.]

CRUCHOT, notary at Saumur during the Restoration; brother of Abbe Cruchot; uncle of President Cruchot de Bonfons. He as well as the prelate was much concerned with making the match between his nephew and Eugenie Grandet. The young girl's father entrusted M. Cruchot with his usurious dealings and probably with all his money matters.

[Eugenie Grandet.]

CURIEUX (Catherine). (See Farrabesche, Madame.)

CYDALISE, magnificent woman of Valognes, Normandy, who launched out in Paris in 1840 to make capital out of her beauty. Born in 1824, she was then only sixteen. She served as an instrument for Montes the Brazilian who, in order to avenge himself on Mme. Marneffe--now Mme.

Crevel--inoculated the young girl with a terrible disease through one of his negroes. He in turn obtained it from Cydalise and transmitted it to the faithless Valerie who died as also did her husband. Cydalise probably accompanied Montes to Brazil, the only place where this horrible ailment is curable. [Cousin Betty.]

D

DALLOT, mason in the suburbs of l'Isle-Adam in the early days of the Restoration, who was to marry a peasant woman of small wit named Genevieve. After having courted her for the sake of her little property, he deserted her for a woman of more means and also of a sharper intelligence. This separation was so cruel a blow to Genevieve that she became idiotic. [Farewell.]

DANNEPONT, alias La Pouraille, one of the a.s.sa.s.sins of M. and Mme.

Crottat. Imprisoned for his crime in 1830 at the Conciergerie, and under sentence of capital punishment; an escaped convict who had been sought on account of other crimes by the police for five years past.

Born about 1785 and sent to the galleys at the age of nineteen. There he had known Jacques Collin--Vautrin. Riganson, Selerier and he formed a sort of triumvirate. A short, skinny, dried-up fellow with a face like a marten. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

DAUPHIN, pastry-cook of Arcis-sur-Aube; well-known Republican. In 1830, in an electoral caucus, he questioned Sallenauve, a candidate for deputy, about Danton. [The Member for Arcis.]