Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 3

BAUDENORD (Madame de), wife of the preceding. Born Isaure d'Aldrigger, in 1807, at Strasbourg. An indolent blonde, fond of dancing, but a nonent.i.ty from both the moral and the intellectual standpoints. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

BAUDOYER (Monsieur and Madame), formerly tanners at Paris, rue Censier. They owned their house, besides having a country seat at l'Isle Adam. They had but one child, Isidore, whose sketch follows.

Mme. Baudoyer, born Mitral, was the sister of the bailiff of that name. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDOYER (Isidore), born in 1788; only son of M. and Mme. Baudoyer, tanners, rue Censier, Paris. Having finished a course of study, he obtained a position in the Bureau of Finance, where, despite his notorious incapacity--and through "wire-pulling"--he became head of the office. In 1824, a head of the division, M. de La Billardiere died, when the meritorious clerk, Xavier Rabourdin, aspired to succeed him; but the position went to Isidore Baudoyer, who was backed by the power of money and the influence of the Church. He did not retain this post long; six months thereafter he became a preceptor at Paris.

Isidore Baudoyer lived with his wife and her parents in a house on Palais Royale (now Place des Vosges), of which they were joint owners.

[The Government Clerks.] He dined frequently, in 1840, at Thuillier's, an old employe of the Bureau of Finance, then domiciled at the rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, who had renewed his acquaintance with his old-time colleagues. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.] In 1845, this man, who had been a model husband and who made a great pretence of religion maintained Heloise Brisetout. He was then mayor of the arrondiss.e.m.e.nt of the Palais Royale. [Cousin Pons.]

BAUDOYER (Madame), wife of the preceding and daughter of a cashier of the Minister of Finance; born Elisabeth Saillard in 1795. Her mother, an Auvergnat, had an uncle, Bidault, alias Gigonnet, a short-time money lender in the Halles quarter. On the other side, her mother-in-law was the sister of the bailiff Mitral. Thanks to these two men of means, who exercised a veritable secret power, and through her piety, which put her on good terms with the clergy, she succeeded in raising her husband up to the highest official positions--profiting also by the financial straits of Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx, Secretary General of Finance. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDOYER (Mademoiselle), daughter of Isidore Baudoyer and Elisabeth Saillard, born in 1812. Reared by her parents with the idea of becoming the wife of the shrewd and energetic speculator Martin Falleix, brother of Jacques Falleix the stock-broker. [The Government Clerks.]

BAUDRAND, cashier of a boulevard theatre, of which Gaudissart became the director about 1834. In 1845 he was succeeded by the proletariat Topinard. [Cousin Pons.]

BAUDRY (Planat de), Receiver General of Finances under the Restoration. He married one of the daughters of the Comte de Fontaine.

He usually pa.s.sed his summers at Sceaux, with almost all his wife's family. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

BAUVAN (Comte de), one of the instigators of the Chouan insurrection in the department d'Ille-et-Vilaine, in 1799. Through a secret revelation made to his friend the Marquis de Montauran on the part of Mlle. de Verneuil, the Comte de Bauvan caused, indirectly, the Ma.s.sacre des Bleus at Vivetiere. Later, surprised in an ambuscade by soldiers of the Republic, he was made a prisoner by Mlle. de Verneuil and owed his life to her; for this reason he became entirely devoted to her, a.s.sisting as a witness at her marriage with Montauran. [The Chouans.]

BAUVAN (Comtesse de), in all likelihood the wife of the foregoing, whom she survived. In 1822 she was manager of a Parisian lottery bureau which employed Madame Agatha Bridau, about the same time. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BAUVAN (Comte and Comtesse de), father and mother of Octave de Bauvan.

Relics of the old Court, living in a tumble-down house on the rue Payenne at Paris, where they died, about 1815, within a few months of each other, and before the conjugal infelicity of their son. (See Octave de Bauvan.) Probably related to the two preceding. [Honorine.]

BAUVAN (Comte Octave de), statesman and French magistrate. Born in 1787. When twenty-six he married Honorine, a beautiful young heiress who had been reared carefully at the home of his parents, M. and Mme.

de Bauvan, whose ward she was. Two or three years afterwards she left the conjugal roof, to the infinite despair of the comte, who gave himself over entirely to winning her back again. At the end of several years he succeeded in getting her to return to him through pity, but she died soon after this reconciliation, leaving one son born of their reunion. The Comte de Bauvan, completely broken, set out for Italy about 1836. He had two residences at Paris, one on rue Payenne, an heirloom, the other on Faubourg Saint-Honore, which was the scene of the domestic reunion. [Honorine.] In 1830, the Comte de Bauvan, then president of the Court of Ca.s.sation, with MM. de Granville and de Serizy, tried to save Lucien de Rubempre from a criminal judgment, and, after the suicide of that unhappy man, he followed his remains to the grave. [Scenes from a Courtesan's life.]

BAUVAN (Comtesse Honorine de), wife of the preceding. Born in 1794.

Married at nineteen to the Comte Octave de Bauvan. After having abandoned her husband, she was in turn, while expecting a child, abandoned by her lover, some eighteen months later. She then lived a very retired life in the rue Saint-Maur, yet all the time being under the secret surveillance of the Comte de Bauvan who paid exorbitant prices for the artificial flowers which she made. She thus derived from him a rather large part of the sustenance which she believed she owed only to her own efforts. She died, reunited to her husband, shortly after the Revolution of July, 1830. Honorine de Bauvan lost her child born out of wedlock, and she always mourned it. During her years of toilsome exile in the Parisian faubourg, she came in contact successively with Marie Gobain, Jean-Jules Popinot, Felix Gaudissart, Maurice de l'Hostal and Abbe Loraux.[Honorine.]

BEAUDENORD (Madame de), wife of the preceding. Born Isaure d'Aldrigger, in 1807, at Strasbourg. An indolent blonde, fond of dancing, but a nonent.i.ty from both the moral and the intellectual standpoints. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

BEAUMESNIL (Mademoiselle), a celebrated actress of the Theatre-Francais, Paris. Mature at the time of the Restoration. She was the mistress of the police-officer Peyrade, by whom she had a daughter, Lydie, whom he acknowledged. The last home of Mlle.

Beaumesnil was on rue de Tournon. It was there that she suffered the loss by theft of her valuable diamonds, through Charles Crochard, her real lover. This was at the beginning of the reign of Louis Philippe.

[The Middle Cla.s.ses. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. A Second Home.]

BEAUPIED, or Beau-Pied, an alias of Jean Falcon. (See that name.)

BEAUPRE (f.a.n.n.y), an actress at the Theatre de la Porte-Saint-Martin, Paris, time of Charles X. Young and beautiful, in 1825, she made a name for herself in the role of marquise in a melodrama ent.i.tled "La Famille d'Anglade." At this time she had replaced Coralie, then dead, in the affections of Camusot the silk-merchant. It was at f.a.n.n.y Beaupre's that Oscar Husson, one of the clerks of lawyer Desroches, lost in gaming the sum of five hundred francs belonging to his employer, and that he was discovered lying dead-drunk on a sofa by his uncle Cardot. [A Start in Life.] In 1829 f.a.n.n.y Beaupre, for a money consideration, posed as the best friend of the Duc d'Herouville.

[Modeste Mignon.] In 1842, after his liaison with Mme. de la Baudraye, Lousteau lived maritally with her. [The Muse of the Department.] A frequent inmate of the mansion magnificently fitted up for Esther Gobseck by the Baron de Nucingen, she knew all the fast set of the years 1829 and 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BEAUSEANT (Marquis and Comte de), the father and eldest brother of the Vicomte de Beauseant, husband of Claire de Bourgogne. [The Deserted Woman.] In 1819, the marquis and the comte dwelt together in their house, rue Saint-Dominique, Paris. [Father Goriot.] While the Revolution was on, the marquis had emigrated. The Abbe de Marolles had dealings with him. [An Episode under the Terror.]

BEAUSEANT (Marquise de). In 1824 a Marquise de Beauseant, then rather old, is found to have dealings with the Chaulieus. It was probably the widow of the marquis of this name, and the mother of the Comte and Vicomte de Beauseant. [Letters of Two Brides.] The Marquise de Beauseant was a native of Champagne, coming of a very old family. [The Deserted Woman.]

BEAUSEANT (Vicomte de), husband of Claire de Bourgogne. He understood the relations of his wife with Miguel d'Ajuda-Pinto, and, whether he liked it or not, he respected this species of morganatic alliance recognized by society. The Vicomte de Beauseant had his residence in Paris on the rue de Grenelle in 1819. At that time he kept a dancer and liked nothing better than high living. He became a marquis on the death of his father and eldest brother. He was a polished man, courtly, methodical, and ceremonious. He insisted upon living selfishly. His death would have allowed Mme. de Beauseant to wed Gaston de Nueil. [Father Goriot. The Deserted Woman.]

BEAUSEANT (Vicomtesse de), born Clair de Bourgogne, in 1792. Wife of the preceding and cousin of Eugene de Rastignac. Of a family almost royal. Deceived by her lover, Miguel d'Ajuda-Pinto, who, while continuing his intimacy with her, asked and obtained the hand of Berthe de Rochefide, the vicomtesse left Paris secretly before this wedding and on the morning following a grand ball which was given at her home where she shone in all her pride and splendor. In 1822 this "deserted woman" had lived for three years in the most rigid seclusion at Courcelles near Bayeux. Gaston de Nueil, a young man of three and twenty, who had been sent to Normandy for his health, succeeded in making her acquaintance, was immediately smitten with her and, after a long seige, became her lover. This was at Geneva, whither she had fled. Their intimacy lasted for nine years, being broken by the marriage of the young man. In 1819 the Vicomtesse de Beauseant received at Paris the most famous "high-rollers" of the day --Malincour, Ronquerolles, Maxime de Trailles, Marsay, Vandenesse, together with an intermingling of the most elegant dames, as Lady Brandon, the d.u.c.h.esse de Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouet, Mme. de Serizy, the d.u.c.h.esse Carigliano, the Comtesse Ferraud, Mme. de Lantry, the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani, the Marquise de Listomere, the Marquise d'Espard and the d.u.c.h.esse de Maufrigneuse. She was equally intimate with Grandlieu, and the General de Montriveau.

Rastignac, then poor at the time of his start in the world, also received cards to her receptions. [Father Goriot. The Deserted Woman.

Albert Savarus.]

BEAUSSIER, a bourgeois of Issoudun under the Restoration. Upon seeing Joseph Bridau in the diligence, while the artist and his mother were on a journey in 1822, he remarked that he would not care to meet him at night in the corner of a forest--he looked so much like a highwayman. That same evening Beaussier, accompanied by his wife, came to call at Hochon's in order to get a nearer view of the painter. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BEAUSSIER the younger, known as Beaussier the Great; son of the preceding and one of the Knights of Idlesse at Issoudun, commanded by Maxence Gilet, under the Restoration. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BEAUVISAGE, physician of the Convent des Carmelites at Blois, time of Louis XVIII. He was known by Louise de Chaulieu and by Renee de Maucombe, who were reared in the convent. According to Louise de Chaulieu, he certainly belied his name. [Letters of Two Brides.]

BEAUVISAGE, at one time tenant of the splendid farm of Bellache, pertaining to the Gondreville estate at Arcis-sur-Aube. The father of Phileas Beauvisage. Died about the beginning of the nineteenth century. [The Gondreville Mystery. The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Madame), wife of the preceding. She survived him for quite a long period and helped her son Phileas win his success. [The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Phileas), son of Beauvisage the farmer. Born in 1792. A hosier at Arcis-sur-Aube during the Restoration. Mayor of the town in 1839. After a preliminary defeat he was elected deputy at the time when Sallenauve sent in his resignation, in 1841. An ardent admirer of Crevel whose affectations he aped. A millionaire and very vain, he would have been able, according to Crevel, to advance Mme. Hulot, for a consideration, the two hundred thousand francs of which that unhappy lady stood in so dire a need about 1842. [Cousin Betty. The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Madame), born Severine Grevin in 1795. Wife of Phileas Beauvisage, whom she kept in complete subjugation. Daughter of Grevin the notary of Arcis-sur-Aube, Senator Malin de Gondreville's intimate friend. She inherited her father's marvelous faculty of discretion; and, though diminutive in stature, reminded one forcibly, in her face and ways, of Mlle. Mars. [The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVISAGE (Cecile-Renee), only daughter of Phileas Beauvisage and Severine Grevin. Born in 1820. Her natural father was the Vicomte Melchior de Chargeboeuf who was sub-prefect of Arcis-sur-Aube at the commencement of the Restoration. She looked exactly like him, besides having his aristocratic airs. [The Member for Arcis.]

BEAUVOIR (Charles-Felix-Theodore, Chevalier de), cousin of the d.u.c.h.esse de Maille. A Chouan prisoner of the Republic in the chateau de l'Escarpe in 1799. The hero of a tale of marital revenge related by Lousteau, in 1836, to Mme. de la Baudraye, the story being obtained --so the narrator said--from Charles Nodier. [The Muse of the Department.]

BECANIERE (La), surname of Barbette Cibot. (See that name.)

BECKER (Edme), a student of medicine who dwelt in 1828 at number 22, rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve--the residence of the Marquis d'Espard. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

BEDEAU, office boy and roustabout for Maitre Bordin, attorney to the Chatelet in 1787. [A Start in Life.]

BEGA, surgeon in a French regiment of the Army of Spain in 1808. After having privately accouched a Spaniard under the espionage of her lover, he was a.s.sa.s.sinated by her husband, who surprised him in the telling of this clandestine operation. The foregoing adventure was told Mme. de la Baudraye, in 1836, by the Receiver of Finances, Gravier, former paymaster of the Army. [The Muse of the Department.]

BEGRAND (La), a dancer at the theatre of Porte-Sainte-Martin, Paris, in 1820.* Mariette, who made her debut at this time, also scored a success. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

* She shone for more than sixty years as a famous ch.o.r.eographical artist in the boulevards.

BELLEFEUILLE (Mademoiselle de), a.s.sumed name of Caroline Crochard.

BELLEJAMBE, servant of Lieutenant-Colonel Husson in 1837. [A Start in Life.]

BELOR (Mademoiselle de), young girl of Bordeaux living there about 1822. She was always in search of a husband, whom, for some cause or other, she never found. Probably intimate with Evangelista. [A Marriage Settlement.]

BEMBONI (Monsignor), attache to the Secretary of State at Rome, who was entrusted with the transmission to the Duc de Soria at Madrid of the letters of Baron de Mac.u.mer his brother, a Spanish refugee at Paris in 1823, 1824. [Letters of Two Brides.]

BENARD (Pieri). After corresponding with a German for two years, he discovered an engraving by Muller ent.i.tled the "Virgin of Dresden." It was on Chinese paper and made before printing was discovered. It cost Cesar Birotteau fifteen hundred francs. The perfumer destined this engraving for the savant Vauquelin, to whom he was under obligations.

[Cesar Birotteau.]

BENa.s.sIS (Doctor), born about 1779 in a little town of Languedoc. He received his early training at the College of Soreze, Tarn, which was managed by the Oratorians. After that he pursued his medical studies at Paris, residing in the Latin quarter. When twenty-two he lost his father, who left him a large fortune; and he deserted a young girl by whom he had had a son, in order to give himself over to the most foolish dissipations. This young girl, who was thoroughly well meant and devoted to him, died two years after the desertion despite the most tender care of her now contrite lover. Later Bena.s.sis sought marriage with another young girl belonging to a Jansenist family. At first the affair was settled, but he was thrown over when the secret of his past life, hitherto concealed, was made known. He then devoted his whole life to his son, but the child died in his youth. After wavering between suicide and the monastery of Grande-Chartreuse, Doctor Bena.s.sis stopped by chance in the poor village of l'Isere, five leagues from Gren.o.ble. He remained there until he had transformed the squalid settlement, inhabited by good-for-nothing Cretins, into the chief place of the Canton, bustling and prosperous. Bena.s.sis died in 1829, mayor of the town. All the populace mourned the benefactor and man of genius. [The Country Doctor.]

BENEDETTO, an Italian living at Rome in the first third of the nineteenth century. A tolerable musician, and a police spy, "on the side." Ugly, small and a drunkard, he was nevertheless the lucky husband of Luigia, whose marvelous beauty was his continual boast.

After an evening spent by him over the wine-cups, his wife in loathing lighted a brasier of charcoal, after carefully closing all the exits of the bedchamber. The neighbors rushing in succeeded in saving her alone; Benedetto was dead. [The Member for Arcis.]

BERENICE, chambermaid and cousin of Coralie the actress of the Panorama and Gymnase Dramatique. A large Norman woman, as ugly as her mistress was pretty, but tender and sympathetic in direct proportion to her corpulence. She had been Coralie's childhood playmate and was absolutely bound up in her. In October, 1822, she gave Lucien de Rubempre, then entirely penniless, four five-franc pieces which she undoubtedly owed to the generosity of chance lovers met on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. This sum enabled the unfortunate poet to return to Angouleme. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]