Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 4

BERGERIN was the best doctor at Saumur during the Restoration. He attended Felix Grandet in his last illness. [Eugenie Grandet.]

BERGMANN (Monsieur and Madame), Swiss. Venerable gardeners of a certain Comte Borromeo, tending his parks located on the two famous isles in Lake Major. In 1823 they owned a house at Gersau, near Quatre-Canton Lake, in the Canton of Lucerne. For a year back they had let one floor of this house to the Prince and Princesse Gandolphini, --personages of a novel ent.i.tled, "L'Ambitieux par Amour," published by Albert Savarus in the Revue de l'Est, in 1834. [Albert Savarus.]

BERNARD. (See Baron de Bourlac.)

BERNUS, diligence messenger carrying the pa.s.sengers, freight, and perhaps, the letters of Saint-Nazaire to Guerande, during the time of Charles X. and Louis Philippe. [Beatrix.]

BERQUET, workman of Besancon who erected an elevated kiosk in the garden of the Wattevilles, whence their daughter Rosalie could see every act and movement of Albert Savarus, a near neighbor. [Albert Savarus.]

BERTHIER (Alexandre), marshal of the Empire, born at Versailles in 1753, dying in 1815. He wrote, as Minister of War at the close of 1799, to Hulot, then in command of the Seventy-second demi-brigade, refusing to accept his resignation and giving him further orders. [The Chouans.] On the evening of the battle of Jena, October 13, 1806, he accompanied the Emperor and was present at the latter's interview with the Marquis de Chargeboeuf and Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, special envoys to France to implore pardon for the Simeuses, the Hauteserres, and Michu who had been condemned as abductors of Senator Malin de Gondreville. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

BERTHIER, Parisian notary, successor of Cardot, whose a.s.sistant head-clerk he had been and whose daughter Felicite (or Felicie) he married. In 1843 he was Mme. Marneffe's notary. At the same time he had in hand the affairs of Camusot de Marville; and Sylvain Pons often dined with him. Master Berthier drew up the marriage settlement of Wilhelm Schwab with Emilie Graff, and the copartnership articles between Fritz Brunner and Wilhelm Schwab. [Cousin Betty. Cousin Pons.]

BERTHIER (Madame), nee Felicie Cardot, wife of the preceding. She had been wronged by the chief-clerk in her father's office. This young man died suddenly, leaving her enceinte. She then espoused the second clerk, Berthier, in 1837, after having been on the point of accepting Lousteau. Berthier was cognizant of all the head-clerk's doings. In this affair both acted for a common interest. The marriage was measurably happy. Madame Berthier was so grateful to her husband that she made herself his slave. About the end of 1844 she welcomed very coldly Sylvain Pons, then in disgrace in the family circle. [The Muse of the Department. Cousin Pons.]

BERTON, tax-collector at Arcis-sur-Aube in 1839. [The Member for Arcis.]

BERTON (Mademoiselle), daughter of the tax-collector of Arcis-sur-Aube. A young, insignificant girl who acted the satellite to Cecile Beauvisage and Ernestine Mollot. [The Member for Arcis.]

BERTON (Doctor), physician of Paris. In 1836 he lived on rue d'Enfer (now rue Denfert-Rochereau). An a.s.sistant in the benevolent work of Mme. de la Chanterie, he visited the needy sick whom she pointed out.

Among others he attended Vanda de Mergi, daughter of the Baron de Bourlac--M. Bernard. Doctor Berton was gruff and frigid. [The Seamy Side of History.]

BETHUNE (Prince de), the only man of fashion who knew "what a hat was"

--to quote a saying of Vital the hatter, in 1845. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

BEUNIER & CO., the firm Bixiou inquired after in 1845, near Mme.

Nourrisson's. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

BIANCHI. Italian. During the first Empire a captain in the sixth regiment of the French line, which was made up almost entirely of men of his nationality. Celebrated in his company for having bet that he would eat the heart of a Spanish sentinel, and winning that bet.

Captain Bianchi was first to plant the French colors on the wall of Tarragone, Spain, in the attack of 1808. But a friar killed him. [The Maranas.]

BIANCHON (Doctor), a physician of Sancerre, father of Horace Bianchon, brother of Mme. Popinot, the wife of Judge Popinot. [The Commission in Lunacy.]

BIANCHON (Horace), a physician of Paris, celebrated during the times of Charles X. and Louis Philippe; an officer of the Legion of Honor, member of the Inst.i.tute, professor of the Medical Faculty, physician-in-charge, at the same time, of a hospital and the Ecole Polytechnique. Born at Sancerre, Cher, about the end of the eighteenth century. He was "interne" at the Cochin Hospital in 1819, at which time he boarded at the Vauquer Pension where he knew Eugene de Rastignac, then studying law, and Goriot and Vautrin. [Father Goriot.]

Shortly thereafter, at Hotel Dieu, he became the favored pupil of the surgeon Desplein, whose last days he tended. [The Atheist's Ma.s.s.]

Nephew of Judge Jean-Jules Popinot and relative of Anselme Popinot, he had dealings with the perfumer Cesar Birotteau, who acknowledged indebtedness to him for a prescription of his famous hazelnut oil, and who invited him to the grand ball which precipitated Birotteau's bankruptcy. [Cesar Birotteau. The Commission in Lunacy.] Member of the "Cenacle" in rue des Quatre-Vents, and on intimate terms with all the young fellows composing this clique, he was consequently enabled, to an extent, to bring Daniel d'Arthez to the notice of Rastignac, now Under-Secretary of State. He nursed Lucien de Rubempre who was wounded in a duel with Michel Chrestien in 1822; also Coralie, Lucien's mistress, and Mme. Bridau in their last illnesses. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Bachelor's Establishment. The Secrets of a Princess.] In 1824 the young Doctor Bianchon accompanied Desplein, who was called in to attend the dying Flamet de la Billardiere. [The Government Clerks.] In Provins in 1828, with the same Desplein and Dr. Martener, he gave the most a.s.siduous attention to Pierrette Lorrain. [Pierrette.] In this same year of 1828 he had a momentary desire to become one of an expedition to Morea. He was then physician to Mme. de Listomere, whose misunderstanding with Rastignac he learned and afterwards related. [A Study of Woman.] Again in company with Desplein, in 1829, he was called in by Mme. de Nucingen with the object of studying the case of Baron de Nucingen, her husband, love-sick for Esther Gobseck. In 1830, still with his celebrated chief, he was cited by Corentin to express an opinion on the death of Peyrade and the lunacy of Lydie his daughter. Then, with Desplein and with Dr. Sinard, to attend Mme. de Serizy, who it was feared would go crazy over the suicide of Lucien de Rubempre. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] a.s.sociated with Desplein, at this same time, he cared for the dying Honorine, wife of Comte de Bauvan [Honorine.], and examined the daughter of Baron de Bourlac--M. Bernard--who was suffering from a peculiar Polish malady, the plica. [The Seamy Side of History.] In 1831 Horace Bianchon was the friend and physician of Raphael de Valentin. [The Magic Skin.] In touch with the Comte de Granville in 1833, he attended the latter's mistress, Caroline Crochard. [A Second Home.] He also attended Mme. du Bruel, then mistress of La Palferine, who had injured herself by falling and striking her head against the sharp corner of a fireplace. [A Prince of Bohemia.] In 1835 he attended Mme. Marie Gaston--Louise de Chaulieu --though a hopeless case. [Letters of Two Brides.] In 1837 at Paris he accouched Mme. de la Baudraye who had been intimate with Lousteau; he was a.s.sisted by the celebrated accoucheur Duriau. [The Muse of the Department.] In 1838 he was Comte Laginski's physician. [The Imaginary Mistress.] In 1840 Horace Bianchon resided on rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, in the house where his uncle, Judge Popinot, died, and he was asked to become one of the Munic.i.p.al Council, in place of that upright magistrate. But he declined, declaring in favor of Thuillier. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.] The physician of Baron Hulot, Crevel and Mme. Marneffe, he observed with seven of his colleagues, the terrible malady which carried off Valerie and her second husband in 1842. In 1843 he also visited Lisbeth Fisher in her last illness [Cousin Betty.] Finally, in 1844, Dr. Bianchon was consulted by Dr.

Roubaud regarding Mme. Graslin at Montegnac. [The Country Parson.]

Horace Bianchon was a brilliant and inspiring conversationalist. He gave to society the adventures known by the following t.i.tles: A Study of Woman; Another Study of Woman; La Grande Breteche.

BIBI-LUPIN, chief of secret police between 1819 and 1830; a former convict. In 1819 he personally arrested at Mme. Vauquer's boarding-house Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, his old galley-mate and personal enemy. Under the name of Gondureau, Bibi-Lupin had made overtures to Mlle. Michonneau, one of Mme. Vauquer's guests, and through her he had obtained the necessary proofs of the real ident.i.ty of Vautrin who was then without the pale of the law, but who later, May, 1830, became his successor as chief of secret police. [Father Goriot. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIDAULT (Monsieur and Madame), brother and sister-in-law of Bidault, alias Gigonnet; father and mother of M. and Mme. Saillard, furniture-dealers under the Central Market pillars during the latter part of the eighteenth and perhaps the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. [The Government Clerks.]

BIDAULT, known as Gigonnet, born in 1755; originally an Auvergnat; uncle of Mme. Saillard on the paternal side. A paper-merchant at one time, retired from business since the year II of the Republic, he opened an account with a Dutchman called Sieur Werbrust, who was a friend of Gobseck. In business relations with the latter, he was one of the most formidable usurers in Paris, during the Empire, the Restoration and the first part of the July Government. He dwelt in rue Greneta. [The Government Clerks. Gobseck.] Luigi Porta, a ranking officer retired under Louis XVIII., sold all his back pay to Gigonnet.

[The Vendetta.] Bidault was one of the syndicate that engineered the bankruptcy of Birotteau in 1819. At this time he persecuted Mme.

Madou, a market dealer in filberts, who was his debtor. [Cesar Birotteau.] In 1824 he succeeded in making his grand-nephew, Isidore Baudoyer, chief of the division under the Minister of Finance; in this he was aided by Gobseck and Mitral, and worked on the General Secretary, Chardin des Lupeaulx, through the medium of the latter's debts and the fact of his being candidate for deputy. [The Government Clerks.] Bidault was shrewd enough; he saw through--and much to his profit--the pretended speculation involved in the third receivership which was operated by Nucingen in 1826. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In 1833 M. du Tillet advised Nathan, then financially stranded, to apply to Gigonnet, the object being to involve Nathan. [A Daughter of Eve.]

The nick-name of Gigonnet was applied to Bidault on account of a feverish, involuntary contraction of a leg muscle. [The Government Clerks.]

BIDDIN, goldsmith, rue de l'Arbe-Sec, Paris, in 1829; one of Esther Gobseck's creditors. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIFFE (La), concubine of the criminal Riganson, alias Le Biffon. This woman, who was a sort of Jacques Collin in petticoats, evaded the police, thanks to her disguises. She could ape the marquise, the baronne and the comtesse to perfection. She had her own carriage and footmen. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIFFON (Le), an alias of Riganson.

BIGORNEAU, sentimental clerk of Fritot's, the shawl merchant in the Bourse quarter, Paris, time of Louis Philippe. [Gaudissart II.]

BIJOU (Olympe). (See Grenouville, Madame.)

BINET, inn-keeper in the Department of l'Orne in 1809. He was concerned in a trial which created some stir, and cast a shadow over Mme. de la Chanterie, striking at her daughter, Mme. des Tours-Minieres. Binet harbored some brigands known as "chauffeurs."

He was brought to trial for it and sentenced to five years'

imprisonment. [The Seamy Side of History.]

BIROTTEAU (Jacques), a gardener hard by Chinon. He married the chambermaid of a lady on whose estate he trimmed vines. Three boys were born to them: Francois, Jean and Cesar. He lost his wife on the birth of the last child (1779), and himself died shortly after. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BIROTTEAU (Abbe Francois), eldest son of Jacques Birotteau; born in 1766; vicar of the church of Saint-Gatien at Tours, and afterwards cure of Saint-Symphorien in the same city. After the death of the Abbe de la Berge, in 1817, he became confessor of Mme. de Mortsauf, attending her last moments. [The Lily of the Valley.] His brother Cesar, the perfumer, wrote him after his--Cesar's--business failure in 1819, asking aid. Abbe Birotteau, in a touching letter, responded with the sum of one thousand francs which represented all his own little h.o.a.rd and, in addition, a loan obtained from Mme. de Listomere. [Cesar Birotteau.] Accused of having inveigled Mme. de Listomere to leave him the income of fifteen hundred francs, which she bequeathed him on her death, Abbe Birotteau was placed under interdiction, in 1826, the victim of the terrible hatred of the Abbe Troubert. [The Vicar of Tours.]

BIROTTEAU (Jean), second son of Jacques Birotteau. A captain in the army, killed in the historic battle of La Trebia which lasted three days, June 17-19, 1799. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BIROTTEAU (Cesar), third son of Jacques Birotteau, born in 1779; dealer in perfumes in Paris at number 397 rue Saint-Honore, near the Place Vendome, in the old shop once occupied by the grocer Descoings, who was executed with Andre Chenier in 1794. After the eighteenth Brumaire, Cesar Birotteau succeeded Sieur Ragon, and moved the source of the "Queen of Roses" to the above address. Among his customers were the Georges, the La Billardieres, the Montaurans, the Bauvans, the Longuys, the Mandas, the Berniers, the Guenics, and the Fontaines.

These relations with the militant Royalists implicated him in the plot of the 13th Vendemaire, 1795, against the Convention; and he was wounded, as he told over and over, "by Bonaparte on the borders of Saint-Roche." In May, 1800, Birotteau the perfumer married Constance-Barbe-Josephine Pillerault. By her he had an only daughter, Cesarine, who married Anselme Popinot in 1822. Successively captain, then chief of battalion in the National Guard and adjunct-mayor of the eleventh arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, Birotteau was appointed Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1818. To celebrate his nomination in the Order, he gave a grand ball* which, on account of the very radical changes necessitated in his apartments, and coupled with some bad speculations, brought about his total ruin; he filed a pet.i.tion in bankruptcy the year following. By stubborn effort and the most rigid economy, Birotteau was able to indemnify his creditors completely, three years later (1822). But he died soon after the formal court reinstating. He numbered among his patrons in 1818 the following: the Duc and d.u.c.h.esse de Lenoncourt, the Princesse de Blamont-Chauvry, the Marquise d'Espard, the two Vandenesses, Marsay, Ronquerolles, and the Marquis d'Aiglemont. [Cesar Birotteau. A Bachelor's Establishment.] Cesar Birotteau was likewise on friendly terms with the Guillaumes, clothing dealers in the rue Saint-Denis. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.]

* The 17th of December was really Thursday and not Sunday, as erroneously given.

BIROTTEAU (Madame), born Constance-Barbe-Josephine Pillerault in 1782.

Married Cesar Birotteau in May, 1800. Previous to her marriage she was head "saleslady" at the "Little Sailor"* novelty shop, corner of Quai Anjou and rue des Deux Ponts, Paris. Her surviving relative and guardian was her uncle, Claude-Joseph Pillerault. [Cesar Birotteau.]

* This shop still exists at the same place, No. 43 Quai d'Anjou and 40 rue des Deux-Ponts, being run by M. L. Bellevaut.

BIROTTEAU (Cesarine). (See Popinot, Madame Anselme.)

BIXIOU,* Parisian grocer, in rue Saint-Honore, before the Revolution in the eighteenth century. He had a clerk called Descoings, who married his widow. The grocer Bixiou was the grandfather of Jean-Jacques Bixiou, the celebrated cartoonist. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

* p.r.o.nounced "Bissiou."

BIXIOU, son of the preceding and father of Jean-Jacques Bixiou. He was a colonel of the Twenty-first Regiment; killed at the battle of Dresden, on the 26th or 27th of August, 1813. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

BIXIOU (Jean-Jacques), famous artist; son of Colonel Bixiou who was killed at Dresden; grandson of Mme. Descoings, whose first husband was the grocer Bixiou. Born in 1797, he pursued a course of study at the Lyceum, to which he had obtained a scholarship. He had for friends Philippe and Joseph Bridau, and Master Desroches. Later he entered the painter Gros's studio. Then in 1819, through the influence of the Ducs de Maufrigneuse and de Rhetore, whom he met at some dancer's, he obtained a position with the Minister of Finance. He remained with this administration until December, 1824, when he resigned. In this same year he was one of the best men for Philippe Bridau, who married Flore Brazier, known as La Rabouilleuse, the widow of J.-J. Rouget.

After this woman's death, in 1828, he was led, disguised as a priest, to the residence of the Soulanges, where he told the comte about the scandal connected with her death, knowingly caused by her husband; he told, also, about the bad habits and vulgarities of Philippe Bridau, and thus caused the breaking off of the marriage of this weather-beaten soldier with Mlle. Amelie de Soulanges. A talented cartoonist, distinguished practical joker, and recognized as one of the kings of _bon mot_, he led a free and easy life. He was on speaking terms with all the artists and all the lorettes of his day. Among others he knew the painter, Hippolyte Schinner. He turned a pretty penny, during the trial of De Fualdes and de Castaing, by ill.u.s.trating in a fantastic way the account of this trial. [A Bachelor's Establishment. The Government Clerks. The Purse.] He designed some vignettes for the writing of Ca.n.a.lis. [Modeste Mignon.] With Blondet, Lousteau and Nathan he was a habitue of the house of Esther Gobseck, rue Saint-Georges, in 1829, 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] In a private room of a well-known restaurant, in 1836, he wittily related to Finot, Blondet and Couture the source of Nucingen's fortune. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In January, 1837, his friend Lousteau had him come especially to upbraid him, Lousteau, on account of the latter's irregular ways with Mme. de la Baudraye, while she, concealed in an ante-room, heard it all. This scene had been arranged beforehand; its object was to give Lousteau a chance to declare, apparently, his unquenchable attachment for his mistress. [The Muse of the Department.] In 1838 he attended the house-warming of Heloise Brisetout in rue Chauchat. In the same year he was attendant at the marriage of Steinbock with Hortense Hulot, and of Crevel with the widow Marneffe. [Cousin Betty.] In 1839 the sculptor Dorlange-Sallenauve knew of Bixiou and complained of his slanders.

[The Member for Arcis.] Mme. Schontz treated him most cordially in 1838, and he had to pa.s.s for her "special," although their relations, in fact, did not transcend the bounds of friendship. [Beatrix.] In 1840, at the home of Marguerite Turquet, maintained by the notary Cardot, when Lousteau, Nathan and La Palferine were also present, he heard a story by Desroches. [A Man of Business.] About 1844, Bixiou helped in a high comedy relative to a Selim shawl sold by Fritot to Mistress Noswell.

Bixiou himself had purchased, in a shop with M. du Ronceret, a shawl for Mme. Schontz. [Gaudissart II.] In 1845 Bixiou showed Paris and the "Unconscious Humorists" to a Pyrrenean named Gazonal, in company with Leon de Lora, a cousin of the countryman. At this time Bixiou dwelt at number 112 rue Richelieu, sixth floor; when he had a regular position he had lived in rue de Ponthieu. [The Unconscious Humorists.] In the rue Richelieu period he was the lover of Heloise Brisetout. [Cousin Pons.]

BLAMONT-CHAUVRY (Princesse de), mother of Mme. d'Espard; aunt of the d.u.c.h.esse de Langeais; great aunt of Mme. de Mortsauf; a veritable d'Hozier in petticoats. Her drawing-room set the fashion in Faubourg Saint-Germain, and the sayings of this feminine Talleyrand were listened to as oracles. Very aged at the beginning of the reign of Louis XVIII., she was one of the most poetic relics of the reign of Louis XV., the "Well-Beloved;" and to this nick-name--as the records had it--she had contributed her full share. [The Thirteen.] Mme.

Firmiani was received by the princess on account of the Cadignans, to whom she was related on her mother's side. [Madame Firmiani.] Felix de Vandenesse was admitted to her "At Homes," on the recommendation of Mme. de Mortsauf; nevertheless he found in this old lady a friend whose affection had a quality almost maternal. The princess was in the family conclave which met to consider an amorous escapade of the d.u.c.h.esse Antoinette de Langeais. [The Lily of the Valley. The Thirteen.]

BLANDUREAUS (The), wealthy linen merchants at Alencon, time of the Restoration. They had an only daughter, to whom the President du Ronceret wished to marry his son. She, however, married Joseph Blondet, the oldest son of Judge Blondet. This marriage caused secret hostility between the two fathers, one being the other's superior in office. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

BLONDET, judge at Alencon in 1824; born in 1758; father of Joseph and Emile Blondet. At the time of the Revolution he was a public prosecutor. A botanist of note, he had a remarkable conservatory where he cultivated geraniums only. This conservatory was visited by the Empress Marie-Louise, who spoke of it to the Emperor and obtained for the judge the decoration of the Legion of Honor. Following the Victurien d'Esgrignon episode, about 1825, Judge Blondet was made an officer in the Order and chosen councillor at the Royal Court. Here he remained in office no longer than absolutely necessary, retreating to his dear Alencon home. He married in 1798, at the age of forty, a young girl of eighteen, who in consequence of this disparity was unfaithful to him. He knew that his second son, Emile, was not his own; he therefore cared only for the elder and sent the younger elsewhere as soon as possible. [Jealousies of a Country Town.] About 1838 Fabien du Ronceret obtained credit in an agricultural convention for a flower which old Blondet had given him, but which he exhibited as a product of his own green-house. [Beatrix.]