Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 21

G.o.dEFROID, known by his given name; born about 1806, probably at Paris; son of a wealthy merchant; educated at the Liautard Inst.i.tution; naturally feeble, morally and physically; tried his hand at and made a failure of: law, governmental work, letters, pleasure, journalism, politics and marriage. At the close of 1836 he found himself poor and forsaken; thereupon he tried to pay his debts and live economically. He left Chaussee-d'Antin and took up his abode on rue Chanoinesse, where he became one of Mme. de la Chanteries'

boarders, known as the "Brotherhood of the Consolation." The recommendation of the MoneG.o.ds, bankers, led to his admission. Abbe de Veze, Montauran, Tresnes, Alain, and above all the baroness initiated him, coached him, and entrusted to him various charitable missions.

Among others, about the middle of the reign of Louis Philippe, he took charge of and relieved the frightful poverty of the Bourlacs and the Mergis, the head of which as an imperial judge in 1809 had sentenced Mme. de la Chanterie and her daughter. After he succeeded with this generous undertaking, G.o.defroid was admitted to the Brotherhood. [The Seamy Side of History.]

G.o.dENARS (Abbe de), born about 1795; one of the vicars-general of the archbishop of Besancon between 1830 and 1840. From 1835 on he tried to get a bishopric. One evening he was present at the aristocratic salon of the Wattevilles, at the time of the sudden flight of Albert Savarus, caused by their young daughter. [Albert Savarus.]

G.o.dESCHAL (Francois-Claude-Marie), born about 1804. In 1818, at Paris, he was third clerk in the law office of Derville, rue Vivienne, when the unfortunate Chabert appeared upon the scene. [Colonel Chabert.] In 1820, then an orphan and poor, he and his sister, the dancer Mariette, to whom he was devoted, lived on an eighth floor on rue Vielle-du-Temple. He had already given evidence of a practical temperament, independent and self-seeking, but upright and capable of generous outbursts. [A Bachelor's Establishment.] In 1822, having risen to second clerk, he left Maitre Derville to become head-clerk in Desroches' office, who was greatly pleased with him. G.o.deschal even undertook to reform Oscar Husson. [A Start in Life.] Six years later, while still Desroches' head-clerk, he drew up a pet.i.tion wherein Mme.

d'Espard prayed a guardian for her husband. [The Commission in Lunacy.] Under Louis Philippe he became one of the advocates of Paris and paid half his fees--1840--proposing to pay the other half with the dowry of Celeste Colleville, whose hand was refused him, despite the recommendation of Cardot the notary. Was engaged for Peyrade, in the purchase of a house near the Madeleine. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.] About 1845 G.o.deschal was still practicing, and numbered among his clients the Camusots de Marville. [Cousin Pons.]

G.o.dESCHAL (Marie), born about 1804. She maintained, almost all her life, the nearest and most tender relations with her brother G.o.deschal the notary. Without relatives or means, she kept house with him in 1820, on the eighth floor of a house on rue Vielle-du-Temple, Paris.

Ambition and love for her brother caused her to become a dancer. She had studied her profession from her tenth year. The famous Vestris instructed her and predicted great things for her. Under the name of Mariette, she was engaged at the Porte-Saint-Martin and the Royal Academy of Music. Her success displeased the famous Begrand. In January, 1821, her angelic beauty, maintained despite her profession, opened to her the doors of the Opera. Then she had lovers. The aristocratic and elegant Maufrigneuse protected her for several years.

Mariette also favored Philippe Bridau and was the innocent cause of a theft committed by him in order to enable him to contend with Maufrigneuse. Four months later she went to London, where she won the rich members of the House of Lords, and returned as premiere to the Academy of Music. She was intimate with Florentine Cabirolle, who often received in the Marais. There it was that Mariette kept Oscar Husson out of serious trouble. Mariette attended many festivities. And at the close of the reign of Louis Philippe, she was still a leading figure in the Opera. [A Bachelor's Establishment. A Start in Life.

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Cousin Pons.]

G.o.dIN, under Louis Philippe, a Parisian bourgeois engaged in a lively dispute with a friend of La Palferine's. [A Prince of Bohemia.]

G.o.dIN (La), peasant woman of Conches, Burgundy, about 1823, whose cow Vermichel threatened to seize for the Comte de Montcornet. [The Peasantry.]

G.o.dIVET, recorder of registry of Arcis-sur-Aube in 1839. Through the scheming of Pigoult he was chosen as one of two agents for an electoral meeting called by Simon Giguet, one of the candidates, and presided over by Phileas Beauvisage. [The Member for Arcis.]

G.o.dOLLO (Comtesse Torna de), probably a Hungarian; police spy reporting to Corentin. Was ordered to prevent the marriage of Theodose de la Peyrade and Celeste Colleville. To accomplish this she went to live in the Thuilliers' house, Paris, in 1840, cultivated them and finally ruled them. She sometimes a.s.sumed the name of Mme. Komorn. Her wit and beauty exercised a pa.s.sing effect upon Peyrade. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

GOGUELAT, infantryman of the first Empire, entered the Guard in 1812; was decorated by Napoleon on the battlefield of Valontina; returned during the Restoration to the village of Isere, of which Bena.s.sis was mayor, and became postman. [The Country Doctor.]

GOHIER, goldsmith to the King of France in 1824; supplied Elisabeth Baudoyer with the monstrance with which she decorated the church of Saint Paul, in order to bring about Isidore Baudoyer's promotion in office. [The Government Clerks.]

GOMEZ, captain of the "Saint Ferdinand," a Spanish brig which in 1833 conveyed the newly-enriched Marquis d'Aiglemont from America to France. Gomez was boarded by a Columbian corsair whose captain, the Parisian, ordered him cast overboard. [A Woman of Thirty.]

GONDRAND (Abbe), confessor, under the Restoration, at Paris, of the d.u.c.h.esse Antoinette de Langeais, whose excellent dinners and petty sins he dealt with at his ease in her salon where Montriveau often found him. [The Thirteen.]

GONDREVILLE (Malin, his real name; more frequently known as the Comte de), born in 1763, probably at Arcis-sur-Aube. Short and stout; grandson of a mason employed by Marquis de Simeuse in the building of the Gondreville chateau; only son of the owner of a house at Arcis where dwelt his friend Grevin in 1839. On the recommendation of Danton, he entered the office of the attorney at the chatelet, Paris, in 1787. Head clerk for Maitre Bordin in the same city, the same year.

Returned to the country two years later to become a lawyer at Troyes.

Became an obscure and cowardly member of the Convention. Acquired the friendship of Talleyrand and Fouche, in June, 1800, under singular and opportune circ.u.mstances. Successively and rapidly became tribune, councillor of state, count of the Empire--created Comte de Gondreville --and finally senator. As councillor of state, Gondreville devoted his attention to the preparation of the code. He cut a dash at Paris. He had purchased one of the finest mansions in Faubourg Saint-Germain and married the only daughter of Sibuelle, a wealthy contractor of "shady"

character whom Gondreville made co-receiver of Aube, with Marion. The marriage was celebrated during the Directory or the Consulate. Three children were the result of this union: Charles de Gondreville, Marechale de Carigliano, Mme. Francois Keller. In his own interest, Malin attached himself to Bonaparte. Later, in the presence of the Emperor and of Dubois, the prefect of police, Gondreville selfishly simulated a false generosity and asked that the Hauteserres and Simeuses be striken from the list of the proscribed. Afterwards they were falsely accused of kidnapping him. As senator in 1809, Malin gave a grand ball at Paris, when he vainly awaited the Emperor's appearance, and when Mme. de Lansac reconciled the Soulanges family.

Louis XVIII. made him a peer of France. His wide experience and ownership of many secrets aided Gondreville, whose counsels hindered Decazes and helped Villele. Charles X. disliked him because he remained too intimate with Talleyrand. Under Louis Philippe this bond was relaxed. The July monarchy heaped honors upon him by making him peer once more. One evening in 1833 he met at the home of the Princesse de Cadignan, Henri de Marsay, the prime minister, who had an inexhaustible fund of political stories, new to all the company save Gondreville. He was much engrossed with the elections of 1839, and gave his influence to his grandson, Charles Keller, for Arcis. He concerned himself little with the candidates, who were finally elected; Dorlange-Sallenauve, Phileas Beauvisage, Trailles and Giguet.

[The Gondreville Mystery. A Start in Life. Domestic Peace. The Member for Arcis.]

GONDREVILLE (Comtesse Malin de), born Sibuelle; wife of foregoing; person whose complete insignificance was manifest at the great ball given in Paris by the count in 1809. [Domestic Peace.]

GONDREVILLE (Charles de), son of the preceding, and sub-lieutenant of dragoons in 1818. Young and wealthy, he died in the Spanish campaign of 1823. His death caused great sorrow to his mistress, Mme.

Colleville. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

GONDRIN, born in 1774, in the department of Isere. Conscripted in 1792 and put in the artillery. Was in the Italian and Egyptian campaigns under Bonaparte, as a private, and returned east after the Peace of Amiens. Enrolled, during the Empire, in the pontoon corps of the Guard, he marched through Germany and Russia; was in the battle at Beresina aiding to build the bridge by which the remnant of the army escaped; with forty-one comrades, received the praise of General Eble who singled him out particularly. Returned to Wilna, as the only survivor of the corps after the death of Eble and in the beginning of the Restoration. Unable to read or write, deaf and decrepit, Gondrin forlornly left Paris which had treated him inhospitably, and returned to the village in Dauphine, where the mayor, Dr. Bena.s.sis, gave him work as a ditcher and continued to aid him in 1829. [The Country Doctor.]

GONDRIN (Abbe), young Parisian priest about the middle of the reign of Louis Philippe. Exquisite and eloquent. Knew the Thuilliers. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

GONDUREAU, a.s.sumed name of Bibi-Lupin.

GONORE (La), widow of Moses the Jew, chief of the southern _rouleurs_, in May, 1830; mistress of Dannepont the thief and a.s.sa.s.sin; ran a house of ill-repute on rue Sainte-Barbe for Mme. Nourrisson. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

GORDES (Mademoiselle de), at the head of an aristocratic salon of Alencon, about 1816, while her father, the aged Marquis de Gordes, was still living with her. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

GORENFLOT, mason of Vendome, who walled up the closet concealing Mme.

de Merret's lover, the Spaniard Bagos de Feredia. [La Grande Breteche.]

GORENFLOT, probably posed for Quasimodo of Hugo's "Notre-Dame."

Decrepit, misshapen, deaf, diminutive, he lived in Paris about 1839, and was organ-blower and bell-ringer in the church of Saint-Louis en l'Ile. He also acted as messenger in the confidential financial correspondence between Bricheteau and Dorlange-Sallenauve. [The Member for Arcis.]

GORIOT,* (Jean-Joachim), born about 1750; started as a porter in the grain market. During the first Revolution, although he had received no education, but having a trader's instinct, he began the manufacture of vermicelli and made a fortune out of it. Thrift and fortune favored him under the Terror. He pa.s.sed for a bold citizen and fierce patriot.

Prosperity enabled him to marry from choice the only daughter of a wealthy farmer of Brie, who died young and adored. Upon their two children, Anastasie and Delphine, he lavished all the tenderness of which their mother had been the recipient, spoiling them with fine things. Goriot's griefs date from the day he set each up in housekeeping in magnificent fashion on Chaussee-d'Antin. Far from being grateful for his pecuniary sacrifices, his sons-in-law, Restaud and Nucingen, and his daughters themselves, were ashamed of his bourgeois exterior. In 1813 he had retired saddened and impoverished to the Vauquer boarding-house on rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve. The quarrels of his daughters and the greedy demands for money increased and in 1819 followed him thither. Almost all the guests of the house and especially Mme. Vauquer herself--whose ambitious designs upon him had come to naught--united in persecuting Goriot, now well-nigh poverty-stricken. He found an agreeable respite when he acted as a go-between for the illicit love affair of Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac, his fellow-lodger. The financial distress of Mme. de Restaud, Trailles' victim, gave Goriot the finishing blow. He was compelled to give up the final and most precious bit of his silver plate, and beg the a.s.sistance of Gobseck the usurer. He was crushed. A serious attack of apoplexy carried him off. He died on rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve.

Rastignac watched over him, and Bianchon, then an interne, attended him. Only two men, Christophe, Mme. Vauquer's servant, and Rastignac, followed the remains to Saint-Etienne du Mont and to Pere-Lachaise.

The empty carriages of his daughters followed as far as the cemetery.

[Father Goriot.]

* Two Parisian theatres and five authors have depicted Goriot's life on the stage; March 6, 1835, at the Vaudeville, Ancelot and Paul Dupont; the same year, the month following, at the Varietes, Theaulon, Alexis de Comberousse and Jaime Pere. Also the _Boeuf Gras_ of a carnival in a succeeding year bore the name of Goriot.

GORITZA (Princesse), a charming Hungarian, celebrated for her beauty, towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, and to whom the youthful Chevalier de Valois became so attached that he came near fighting on her account with M. de Lauzun; nor could he ever speak of her without emotion. From 1816 to 1830, the Alencon aristocracy were given glimpses of the princess's portrait, which adorned the chevalier's gold snuff-box. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

GORJU (Madame), wife of the mayor of Sancerre, in 1836, and mother of a daughter "whose figure threatened to change with her first child,"

and who sometimes came with her to the receptions of Mme. de la Baudraye, the "Muse of the Department." One evening, in the fall of 1836, she heard Lousteau reading ironically fragments of "Olympia."

[The Muse of the Department.]

GOTHARD, born in 1788; lived about 1803 in Arcis-sur-Aube, where his courage and address obtained for him the place of groom to Laurence de Cinq-Cygne. Devoted servant of the countess; he was one of the princ.i.p.als acquitted in the trial which ended with the execution of Michu. [The Gondreville Mystery.] Gothard never left the service of the Cinq-Cygne family. Thirty-six years later he was their steward.

With his brother-in-law, Poupard, the Arcis tavern-keeper, he electioneered for his masters. [The Member for Arcis.]

GOUJET (Abbe), cure of Cinq-Cygne, Aube, about 1792, discovered for the son of Beauvisage the farmer, who were still good Catholics, the Greek name of Phileas, one of the few saints not abolished by the new regime. [The Member for Arcis.] Former abbe of the Minimes, and a friend of Hauteserre. Was the tutor of Adrien and Robert Hauteserre; enjoyed a game of boston with their parents--1803. His political prudence sometimes led him to censure the audacity of their kinswoman, Mlle. de Cinq-Cygne. Nevertheless, he held his own with the persecutor of the house, Corentin the police-agent; and attended Michu when that victim of a remarkable trial, known as "the abduction of Gondreville,"

went to the scaffold. During the Restoration he became Bishop of Troyes. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

GOUJET (Mademoiselle), sister of the foregoing; good-natured old maid, ugly and parsimonious, who lived with her brother. Almost every evening she played boston at the Hauteserres and was terrified by Corentin's visits. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

GOULARD, mayor of Cinq-Cygne, Aube, in 1803. Tall, stout and miserly; married a wealthy tradeswoman of Troyes, whose property, augmented by all the lands of the rich abbey of Valdes-Preux, adjoined Cinq-Cygne.

Goulard lived in the old abbey, which was very near the chateau of Cinq-Cygne. Despite his revolutionary proclivities, he closed his eyes to the actions of the Hauteserres and Simeuses who were Royalist plotters. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

GOULARD (Antonin), native of Arcis, like Simon Giguet. Born about 1807; son of the former huntsman of the Simeuse family, enriched by the purchase of public lands. (See preceding biography.) Early left motherless, he came to Arcis to live with his father, who abandoned the abbey of Valpreux. Went to the Imperial lyceum, where he had Simon Giguet for school-mate, whom he afterwards met again on the benches of the Law school at Paris. Obtained, through Gondreville, the Cross of the Legion of Honor. The royal government of 1830 opened up for him a career in the public service. In 1839 he became sub-prefect for Arcis-sur-Aube, during the electoral period. The delegate, Trailles, satisfied Antonin's rancor against Giguet: his official recommendations caused the latter's defeat. Both the would-be prefect and the sub-prefect vainly sought the hand of Cecile Beauvisage.

Goulard cultivated the society of officialdom: Marest, Vinet, Martener, Michu. [The Member for Arcis.]

GOUNOD, nephew of Vatel, keeper of the Montcornet estate at Aigues, Burgundy. About 1823 he probably became a.s.sistant to the head-keeper, Michaud. [The Peasantry.]

GOUPIL (Jean-Sebastien-Marie), born in 1802; a sort of humpless hunchback; son of a well-to-do farmer. After running through with his inheritance, in Paris, he became head-clerk of the notary Cremiere-Dionis, of Nemours--1829. On account of Francois Minoret-Levrault, he annoyed in many ways, even anonymously, Ursule Mirouet, after the death of Dr. Minoret. Afterwards he repented his actions, repaid their instigator, and succeeded the notary, Cremiere-Dionis. Thanks to his wit, he became honorable, straightforward and completely transformed. Once established, Goupil married Mlle. Ma.s.sin, eldest daughter of Ma.s.sin-Levrault junior, clerk to the justice of the peace at Nemours. She was homely, had a dowry of 80,000 francs, and gave him rickety, dropsical children.

Goupil took part in the "three glorious days" and had obtained a July decoration. He was very proud of the ribbon. [Ursule Mirouet.]

GOURAUD (General, Baron), born in 1782, probably at Provins. Under the Empire he commanded the Second regiment of hussars, which gave him his rank. The Restoration caused his impoverished years at Provins. He mixed in politics and the opposition there, sought the hand and above all the dowry of Sylvie Rogron, persecuted the apparent heiress of the old maid, Mlle. Pierrette Lorrain--1827--and, seconded by Vinet the attorney, reaped in July, 1830, the fruits of his cunning liberalism.

Thanks to Vinet, the ambitious parvenu, Gouraud married, in spite of his gray hair and stout frame, a girl of twenty-five, Mlle. Matifat, of the well-known drug-firm of rue des Lombards, who brought with her fifty thousand crowns. t.i.tles, offices and emoluments now flowed in rapidly. He resumed the service, became general, commanded a division near the capital and obtained a peerage. His conduct during the ministry of Casimir Perier was thus rewarded. Futhermore he received the grand ribbon of the Legion of Honor, after having stormed the barricades of Saint-Merri, and was "delighted to thrash the bourgeois who had been an eye-sore to him" for fifteen years. [Pierrette.] About 1845 he had stock in Gaudissart's theatre. [Cousin Pons.]

GOURDON, the elder, husband of the only daugher of the old head-keeper of streams and forests, Gendrin-Wattebled; was in 1823 physician at Soulanges and attended Michaud. Nevertheless he went among the best people of Soulanges, headed by Mme. Soudry, who regarded him in the light of an unknown and neglected savant, when he was but a parrot of Buffon and Cuvier, a simple collector and taxidermist. [The Peasantry.]

GOURDON, the younger, brother of the preceding; wrote the poem of "La Bilboqueide" published by Bournier. Married the niece and only heiress of Abbe Tupin, cure of Soulanges, where he himself had been in 1823 clerk for Sarcus. He was wealthier than the justice. Mme. Soudry and her set gave admiring welcome to the poet, preferring him to Lamartine, with whose works they slowly became acquainted. [The Peasantry.]

GOUSSARD (Laurent) was a member of the revolutionary munic.i.p.ality of Arcis-sur-Aube. Particular friend of Danton, he made use of the tribune's influence to save the head of the ex-superior of the Ursulines at Arcis, Mother Marie des Anges, whose grat.i.tude for his generous and skillful action caused substantial enrichment to this purchaser of the grounds of the convent, which was sold as "public land." Thus it was that forty years afterwards this adroit Liberal owned several mills on the river Aube, and was still at the head of the advanced Left in that district. The various candidates for deputy in the spring of 1839, Keller, Giguet, Beauvisage, Dorlange-Sallenauve, and the government agent, Trailles, treated Goussard with the consideration he deserved. [The Member for Arcis.]