Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 15

DUBOURDIEU, born about 1805; a symbolic painter of the Fouierist school; decorated. In 1845 he was met at the corner of rue Nueve-Vivienne by his friend Leon de Lora, when he expressed his ideas on art and philosophy to Gazonal and Bixiou, who were with the famous landscape-painter. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

DUBUT of Caen, merchant connected with MM. de Boisfranc, de Boisfrelon and de Boislaurier who were also Dubuts, and whose grandfather was a dealer in linens. Dubut of Caen was involved in the trial of the Chauffeurs of Mortagne, in 1809, and sentenced to death for contumacy.

During the Restoration, on account of his devotion to the Royal cause, he had hoped to obtain the succession to the t.i.tle of M. de Boisfranc.

Louis XVIII. made him grand provost, in 1815, and later public prosecutor under the coveted name; finally he died as first president of the court. [The Seamy Side of History.]

DUCANGE (Victor), novelist and playwright of France: born in 1783 at La Haye; died in 1833; one of the collaborators on "Thirty Years," or "A Gambler's Life," and the author of "Leonide." Victor Ducange was present at Braulard's, the head-claquer's, in 1821, at a dinner where were also Adele Dupois, Frederic Dupet.i.t-Mere and Mlle. Millot, Braulard's mistress. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

DUDLEY (Lord), statesman; one of the most distinguished of the older English peers living in Paris after 1816; husband of Lady Arabella Dudley; natural father of Henri de Marsay, to whom he paid small attention, and who became the lover of Arabella. He was "profoundly immoral." He reckoned among his illegitimate progeny, Euphemia Porraberil, and among the women he maintained a certain Hortense who lived on rue Tronchet. Before removing to France, Lord Dudley lived in his native land with two sons born in wedlock, but who were astonishingly like Marsay. [The Lily of the Valley. The Thirteen. A Man of Business.] Lord Dudley was present at Mlle. des Touches, shortly after 1830, when Marsay, then prime minister, told of his first love affair, these two statesmen exchanged philosophical reflections. [Another Study of Woman.] In 1834 he chanced to be present at a grand ball given by his wife, when he gambled in a salon with bankers, amba.s.sadors and retired ministers. [A Daughter of Eve.]

DUDLEY (Lady Arabella), wife of the preceding; member of an ill.u.s.trious English family that was free of any _mesalliance_ from the time of the Conquest; exceedingly wealthy; one of those almost regal ladies; the idol of the highest French society during the Restoration.

She did not live with her husband to whom she had left two sons who resembled Marsay, whose mistress she had been. In some way she succeeded in taking Felix de Vandenesse away from Mme. de Mortsauf, thus causing that virtuous woman keen anguish. She was born, so she said, in Lancashire, where women die of love. [The Lily of the Valley.] In the early years of the reign of Charles X., at least during the summers, she lived at the village of Chatenay, near Sceaux.

[The Ball at Sceaux.] Raphael de Valentin desired her and would have sought her but for the fear of exhausting the "magic skin." [The Magic Skin.] In 1832 she was among the guests at a soiree given by Mme.

d'Espard, where the d.u.c.h.esse de Maufrigneuse was maligned in the presence of Daniel d'Arthez, in love with her. [The Secrets of a Princess.] She was quite jealous of Mme. Felix de Vandenesse, the wife of her old-time lover, and in 1834-35 she manoeuvred, with Mme. de Listomere and Mme. d'Espard to make the young woman fall into the arms of the poet Nathan, whom she wished to be even homelier than he was.

She said to Mme. Felix de Vandenesse: "Marriage, my child, is our purgatory; love our paradise." [A Daughter of Eve.] Lady Dudley, vengeance-bent, caused Lady Brandon to die of grief. [Letters of Two Brides.]

DUFAU, justice of the peace in a commune in the outskirts of Gren.o.ble, where Dr. Bena.s.sis was mayor under the Restoration. Then a tall, bony man with gray locks and clothed in black. He aided materially in the work of regeneration accomplished by the physician in the village.

[The Country Doctor.]

DUFAURE (Jules-Armand-Stanislaus), attorney and French politician; born December 4, 1798, at Saujon, Charente-Inferieure; died an Academician at Rueil in the summer of 1881; friend and co-disciple of Louis Lambert and of Barchou de Penhoen at the college of Vendome in 1811. [Louis Lambert.]

DUMAY (Anne-Francois-Bernard), born at Vannes in 1777; son of a rather mean lawyer, the president of a revolutionary tribunal under the Republic, and a victim of the guillotine subsequent to the ninth Thermidor. His mother died of grief. In 1799 Anne Dumay enlisted in the army of Italy. On the overthrow of the Empire, he retired with the rank of Lieutenant, and came in touch with Charles Mignon, with whom he had become acquainted early in his military career. He was thoroughly devoted to his friend, who had once saved his life at Waterloo. He gave great a.s.sistance to the commercial enterprises of the Mignon house, and faithfully looked after the interests of Mme.

and Mlle. Mignon during the protracted absence of the head of the family, who was suddenly ruined. Mignon came back from America a rich man, and he made Dumay share largely in his fortune. [Modeste Mignon.]

DUMAY (Madame), nee Grummer, wife of the foregoing; a pretty little American woman who married Dumay while he was on a journey to America on behalf of his patron and friend Charles Mignon, during the Restoration. Having had the misfortune to lose several children at birth, and deprived of the hope of others, she became entirely devoted to the two Mignon girls. She as well as her husband was thoroughly attached to that family. [Modeste Mignon.]

DUPEt.i.t-MERE (Frederic), born at Paris in 1785 and died in 1827; dramatic author who enjoyed his brief hour of fame. Under the name of Frederic he constructed either singly, or in collaboration with Ducange, Rougemont, Brazier and others, a large number of melodramas, vaudevilles, and fantasies. In 1821 he was present with Ducange, Adele Dupuis and Mlle. Millot at a dinner at Braulard's, the head-claquer.

[A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

DUPLANTY (Abbe), vicar of Saint-Francois church at Paris; at Schmucke's request he administered extreme unction to the dying Pons, in April, 1845, who understood and appreciated his goodness. [Cousin Pons.]

DUPLAY (Madame), wife of a carpenter of rue Honore at whose house Robespierre lived; a customer of the grocer Descoings, whom she denounced as a forestaller. This accusation led to the grocer's imprisonment and execution. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

DUPOTET, a sort of banker established at Croisic under the Restoration. He had on deposit the modest patrimony of Pierre Cambremer. [A Seaside Tragedy.]

DUPUIS, notary of the Saint-Jacques quarter, time of Louis Philippe; affectedly pious; beadle of the parish. He kept the savings of a lot of servants. Theodose de la Peyrade, who drummed up trade for him in this special line, induced Mme. Lambert, the housekeeper of M. Picot, to place two thousand five hundred francs, saved at her employer's expense, with this virtuous man, who immediately went into bankruptcy.

[The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

DUPUIS (Adele), Parisian actress who for a long time and brilliantly held the leading roles and creations at the Gaite theatre. In 1821 she dined with the chief claquer, Braulard, in company with Ducange, Frederic Dupet.i.t-Mere and Mlle. Millot. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

DURAND, real name of the Chessels. This name of Chessel had been borrowed by Mme. Durand, who was born a Chessel.

DURET (Abbe), cure of Sancerre during the Restoration; aged member of the old clerical school. Excellent company; a frequenter of the home of Mme. de la Baudraye, where he satisfied his penchant for gaming.

With much _finesse_ Duret showed this young woman the character of M.

de la Baudraye in its true light. He counseled her to seek in literature relief from the bitterness of her wedded life. [The Muse of the Department.]

DURIAU, a celebrated accoucheur of Paris. a.s.sisted by Bianchon he delivered Mme. de la Baudraye of a child at the home of Lousteau, its father, in 1837. [The Muse of the Department.]

DURIEU, cook and house servant at the chateau de Cinq-Cygne, under the Consulate. An old and trusted servant, thoroughly devoted to his mistress, Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, whose fortunes he had always followed. He was a married man, his wife being general housekeeper in the establishment. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

DUROC (Gerard-Christophe-Michel), Duc de Frioul; grand marshal of the palace of Napoleon; born at Pont-a-Mousson, in 1772; killed on the battlefield in 1813. On October 13, 1806, the eve of the battle of Jena, he conducted the Marquis de Chargeboeuf and Laurence de Cinq-Cygne to the Emperor's presence. [The Gondreville Mystery.] In April, 1813, he was at a dress-parade at the Carrousel, Paris, when Napoleon addressed him, regarding Mlle. de Chatillonest, noted by him in the throng, in language which made the grand marshal smile. [A Woman of Thirty.]

DURUT (Jean-Francois), a criminal whom Prudence Servien helped convict to hard labor by her testimony in the Court of a.s.sizes. Durut took oath to Prudence, before the same tribunal, that, once free, he would kill her. However, he was executed at the bagne of Toulon four years later (1829). Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, to obtain Prudence's affections, boasted of having freed her from Durut, whose threat held her in perpetual terror. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

DUTHEIL (Abbe), one of the two vicars-general of the Bishop of Limoges during the Restoration. One of the lights of the Gallican clergy. Made a bishop in August, 1831, and promoted to archbishop in 1840. He presided at the public confession of Mme. Graslin, whose friend and advisor he was, and whose funeral procession he followed in 1844. [The Country Parson.]

DUTOCQ, born in 1786. In 1814 he entered the Department of Finance, succeeding Poiret senior who was displaced in the bureau directed by Rabourdin. He was order clerk. Idle and incapable, he hated his chief and caused his overthrow. Very despicable and very prying, he tried to make his place secure by acting as spy in the bureau. Chardin des Lupeaulx, the secretary-general, was advised by him of the slightest developments. After 1816, Dutocq outwardly affected very p.r.o.nounced religious tendencies because he believed them useful to his advancement. He eagerly collected old engravings, possessing complete "his Charlet," which he desired to give or lend to the minister's wife. At this time he dwelt on rue Saint-Louis-Saint-Honore (in 1854 this street disappeared) near Palais Royal, on the fifth floor of an enclosed house, and boarded in a pension of rue de Beaune. [The Government Clerks.] In 1840, retired, he clerked for a justice of the peace of the Pantheon munic.i.p.ality, and lived in Thuillier's house, rue Saint-Dominique d'Enfer. He was a bachelor and had all the vices which, however, he religiously concealed. He kept in with his superiors by fawning. He was concerned with the villainous intrigues of Cerizet, his copy-clerk, and with Theodose de la Peyrade, the tricky lawyer. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

DUVAL, wealthy forge-master of Alencon, whose daughter the grand-niece of M. du Croisier (du Bousquier), was married in 1830 to Victurnien d'Esgrignon. Her dowry was three million francs.

[Jealousies of a Country Town.]

DUVAL, famous professor of chemistry at Paris in 1843. A friend of Dr.

Bianchon, at whose instance he a.n.a.lyzed the blood of M. and Mme.

Crevel, who were infected by a peculiar cutaneous disease of which they died. [Cousin Betty.]

DUVIGNON. (See Lanty, de.)

DUVIVIER, jeweler at Vendome during the Empire. Mme. de Merret declared to her husband that she had purchased of this merchant an ebony crucifix encrusted with silver; but in truth she had obtained it of her lover, Bagos de Feredia. She swore falsely on this very crucifix. [La Grande Breteche.]

E

EMILE, a "lion of the most triumphant kind," of the acquaintance of Mme. Komorn--Countess G.o.dollo. One evening in 1840 or 1841 this woman, in order to avoid Theodose de la Peyrade, on the Boulevard des Italiens, took the dandy's arm and requested him to take her to Mabille. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

ESGRIGNON (Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d'), or, Des Grignons--following the earlier name--commander of the Order of Saint-Louis; born about 1750, died in 1830. Head of a very ancient family of the Francs, the Karawls who came from the North to conquer the Gauls, and who were entrusted with the defence of a French highway.

The Esgrignons, quasi-princes under the house of Valois and all-powerful under Henry IV., were very little known at the court of Louis XVIII.; and the marquis, ruined by the Revolution, lived in rather reduced circ.u.mstances at Alencon in an old gable-roofed house formerly belonging to him, which had been sold as common property, and which the faithful notary Chesnel had repurchased, together with certain portions of his other estates. The Marquis d'Esgrignon, though not having to emigrate, was still obliged to conceal himself. He partic.i.p.ated in the Vendean struggle against the Republic, and was one of the members of the Committee Royal of Alencon. In 1800, at the age of fifty, in the hope of perpetuating his race, he married Mlle. de Nouastre, who died in child-birth, leaving the marquis an only son. M.

d'Esgrignon always overlooked the escapades of this child, whose reputation was preserved by Chesnel; and he pa.s.sed away shortly after the downfall of Charles X., saying: "The Gauls triumph." [The Chouans.

Jealousies of a Country Town.]

ESGRIGNON (Madame d') nee Nouastre; of blood the purest and n.o.blest; married at twenty-two, in 1800, to Marquis Carol d'Esgrignon, a man of fifty. She soon died at the birth of an only son. She was "the prettiest of human beings; in her person were reawakened the charms --now fanciful--of the feminine figures of the sixteenth century."

[Jealousies of a Country Town.]

ESGRIGNON (Victurnien, Comte, then Marquis d'), only son of Marquis Carol d'Esgrignon; born about 1800 at Alencon. Handsome and intelligent, reared with extreme indulgence and kindness by his aunt, Mlle. Armande d'Esgrignon, he gave himself over without restraint to all the whims usual to the ingenuous egoism of his age. From eighteen to twenty-one he squandered eighty thousand francs without the knowledge of his father and his aunt; the devoted Chesnel footed all the bills. The youthful d'Esgrignon was systematically urged to wrong-doing by an ally of his own age, Fabien du Ronceret, a perfidious fellow of the town whom M. du Croisier employed. About 1823 Victurnien d'Esgrignon was sent to Paris. There he had the misfortune to fall into the society of the Parisian _roues_--Marsay, Ronquerolles, Trailles, Chardin des Lupeaulx, Vandenesse, Ajuda-Pinto, Beaudenord, Martial de la Roche-Hugon, Manerville, people met at the homes of Marquise d'Espard, the d.u.c.h.esses de Grandlieu, de Carigliano, de Chaulieu, the Marquises d'Aiglemont and de Listomere, Mme. Firmiani and the Comtesse de Serizy; at the opera and at the emba.s.sies--being welcomed on account of his good name and seeming fortune. It was not long until he became the lover of the d.u.c.h.esse de Maufrigneuse, ruined himself for her and ended by forging a note against M. du Croisier for one hundred thousand francs. His aunt took him back quickly to Alencon, and by a great effort he was rescued from legal proceedings.

Following this he fought a duel with M. du Croisier, who wounded him dangerously. Nevertheless, shortly after the death of his father, Victurnien d'Esgrignon married Mlle. Duval, niece of the retired contractor. He did not give himself over to his wife, but instead betook himself to his former gay life of a bachelor. [Jealousies of a Country Town. Letters of Two Brides.] According to Marguerite Turquet "the little D'Esgrignon was well soaked" by Antonia. [A Man of Business.] In 1832 Victurnien d'Esgrignon declared before a numerous company at Mme. d'Espard's that the Princesse de Cadignan--Mme. de Maufrigneuse--was a dangerous woman. "To her I owe the disgrace of my marriage," he added. Daniel d'Arthez, who was then in love with this woman, was present at the conversation. [The Secrets of a Princess.]

In 1838 Victurnien d'Esgrignon was present with some artists, lorettes and men about town, at the opening of the house on rue de la Ville-Eveque given to Josepha Mirah, by the Duc d'Herouville. The young marquis himself had been Josepha's lover; Baron Hulot and he had been rivals for her on another occasion. [Cousin Betty.]

ESGRIGNON (Marie-Armande-Claire d'), born about 1775; sister of Marquis Carol d'Esgrignon and aunt of Victurnien d'Esgrignon to whom she had been as a mother, with an absolute tenderness. In his old age her father had married for a second time, and to the young daughter of a tax collector, enn.o.bled by Louis XIV. She was born of this union which was looked upon as a horrible _mesalliance_, and although the marquis loved her dearly he regarded her as an alien. He made her weep for joy, one day, by saying solemnly: "You are an Esgrignon, my sister." Emile Blondet, reared at Alencon, had known and loved her in his childhood, and often later he praised her beauty and good qualities. On account of her devotion to her nephew she refused M. de la Roche-Guyon and the Chevalier de Valois, also M. du Bousquier. She gave the fullest proof of her genuinely maternal affection for Victurnien, when the latter committed the crime at Paris, which would have placed him on the prisoner's bench of the Court of a.s.sizes, but for the clever work of Chesnel. She outlived her brother, given over "to her religion and her over-thrown beliefs." About the middle of Louis Philippe's reign Blondet, who had come to Alencon to obtain his marriage license, was again moved on the contemplation of that n.o.ble face. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

ESPARD (Charles-Maurice-Marie-Andoche, Comte de Negrepelisse, Marquis d'), born about 1789; by name a Negrepelisse, of an old Southern family which acquired by a marriage, time of Henry IV., the lands and t.i.tles of the family of Espard, of Bearn, which was allied also with the Albret house. The device of the d'Espards was: "Des partem leonis." The Negrepelisses were militant Catholics, ruined at the time of the Church wars, and afterwards considerably enriched by the despoiling of a family of Protestant merchants, the Jeanrenauds whose head had been hanged after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. This property, so badly acquired, became wondrously profitable to the Negrepelisses-d'Espards. Thanks to his fortune, the grandfather of the marquis was enabled to wed a Navarreins-Lansac, an extremely wealthy heiress; her father was of the younger branch of the Grandlieus. In 1812 the Marquis d'Espard married Mlle. de Blamont-Chauvry, then sixteen years of age. He had two sons by her, but discord soon arose between the couple. Her silly extravagances forced the marquis to borrow. He left her in 1816, going with his two children to live on rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve. Here he devoted himself to the education of his boys and to the composition of a great work; "The Picturesque History of China," the profits of which, combined with the savings resultant from an austere manner of living, allowed him to pay in twelve years' time to the legatees of the suppliant Jeanrenauds eleven hundred thousand francs, representing the value--time of Louis XIV.--of the property confiscated from their ancestors. This book was written, so to speak, in collaboration with Abbe Crozier, and its financial results aided greatly in comforting the declining years of a ruined friend, M. de Nouvion. In 1828 Mme. d'Espard tried to have a guardian appointed for her husband by ridiculing the n.o.ble conduct of the marquis. But the defendant won his rights at court. [The Commission in Lunacy.] Lucien de Rubempre, who entertained Attorney-General Granville with an account of this suit, probably was instrumental in causing the judgment to favor M. d'Espard. Thus he drew upon himself the hatred of the marquise. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

ESPARD (Camille, Vicomte d'), second son of Marquis d'Espard; born in 1815; pursued his studies at the college of Henri IV., in company with his elder brother, the Comte Clement de Negrepelisse. He studied rhetoric in 1828. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

ESPARD (Chevalier d'), brother of Marquis d'Espard, whom he wished to see interdicted, in order that he might be made curator. His face was thin as a knife-blade, and he was frigid and severe. Judge Popinot said he reminded him somewhat of Cain. He was one of the deepest personages to be found in the Marquise d'Espard's drawing-room, and was the political half of that woman. [The Commission in Lunacy.

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. The Secrets of a Princess.]

ESPARD (Jeanne-Clementine-Athenais de Blamont-Chauvry, Marquise d'), born in 1795; wife of Marquis d'Espard; of one of the most ill.u.s.trious houses of Faubourg Saint-Germain. Deserted by her husband in 1816, she was at the age of twenty-two mistress of herself and of her fortune, an income of twenty-six thousand francs. At first she lived in seclusion; then in 1820 she appeared at court, gave some receptions at her own home, and did not long delay about becoming a society woman.

Cold, vain and coquettish she knew neither love nor hatred; her indifference for all that did not directly concern her was profound.

She never showed emotion. She had certain scientific formulas for preserving her beauty. She never wrote but spoke instead, believing that two words from a woman were sufficient to kill three men. More than once she made epigrams to peers or deputies which the courts of Europe treasured. In 1828 she still pa.s.sed with the men for youthful.