Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 40

POUTIN, colonel of the Second lancers, an acquaintance of Marechal Cottin, minister of war in 1841, to whom he told that many years before this one of his men at Severne, having stolen money to buy his mistress a shawl, repented of his deed and ate broken gla.s.s so as to escape dishonor. The Prince of Wissembourg told this story to Hulot d'Ervy, while upbraiding him for his dishonesty. [Cousin Betty.]

PRELARD (Madame), born in 1808, pretty, at first mistress of the a.s.sa.s.sin Auguste, who was executed. She remained constantly in the clutches of Jacques Collin, and was married by Jacqueline Collin, aunt of the pseudo-Herrera, to the head of a Paris hardware-house on Quai aux Fleurs, the Bouclier d'Achille. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PREVOST (Madame), well-known florist, whose store still remains in the Palais-Royal. Early in 1830, Frederic de Nucingen bought a ten louis bouquet there for Esther van Gobseck. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PRIEUR (Madame), laundress at Angouleme, for whom Mademoiselle Chardon, afterwards Madame David Sechard, worked. [Lost Illusions.]

p.r.o.n (Monsieur and Madame), both teachers. M. p.r.o.n taught rhetoric in 1840 at a college in Paris directed by priests. Madame p.r.o.n, born Barniol, and therefore sister-in-law of Madame Barniol-Ph.e.l.lion, succeeded Mesdemoiselles La Grave, about the same time, as director of their young ladies' boarding-school. M. and Madame p.r.o.n lived in the Quartier Saint-Jacques, and frequently visited the Thuilliers. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

PROTEZ AND CHIFFREVILLE, manufactured chemicals; sold a hundred thousand francs' worth to the inventor, Balthazar Claes, about 1812.

[The Quest of the Absolute.] On account of their friendly relations with Cochin, of the Treasury, all the Protezes and the Chiffrevilles were invited to the celebrated ball given by Cesar Birotteau, Sunday, December 17, 1818, on rue Saint Honore. [Cesar Birotteau.]

PROUST, clerk to Maitre Bordin, a Paris attorney, in November, 1806; this fact became known a few years later by G.o.deschal, Oscar Husson and Marest, when they reviewed the books of the attorneys who had been employed in Bordin's office. [A Start in Life.]

PROVENCAL (Le), born in 1777, undoubtedly in the vicinity of Arles. A common soldier during the wars at the close of the eighteenth century, he took part in the expedition of General Desaix into upper Egypt.

Having been taken prisoner by the Maugrabins he escaped only to lose himself in the desert, where he found nothing to eat but dates.

Reduced to the dangerous friendship of a female panther, he tamed her, singularly enough, first by his thoughtless caresses, afterwards by premeditation. He ironically named her Mignonne, as he had previously called Virginie, one of his mistresses. Le Provencal finally killed his pet, not without regret, having been moved to great terror by the wild animal's fierce love. About the same time the soldier was discoverd by some of his own company. Thirty years afterwards, an aged ruin of the Imperial wars, his right leg gone, he was one day visiting the menagerie of Martin the trainer, and recalled his adventure for the delectation of the young spectator. [A Pa.s.sion in the Desert.]

Q

QUELUS (Abbe), priest of Tours or of its vicinity, called frequently on the Chessels, neighbors of the Mortsaufs, at the beginning of the century. [The Lily of the Valley.]

QUEVERDO, faithful steward of the immense domain of Baron de Mac.u.mer, in Sardinia. After the defeat of the Liberals in Spain, in 1823, he was told to look out for his master's safety. Some fishers for coral agreed to pick him up on the coast of Andalusia and set him off at Mac.u.mer. [Letters of Two Brides.]

QUILLET (Francois), office-boy employed by Raoul Nathan's journal on rue Feydau, Paris, 1835. He aided his employer by lending him the name of Francois Quillet. Raoul, in great despair, while occupying a furnished room on rue du Mail, threw several creditors off his track by the use of this a.s.sumed name. [A Daughter of Eve.]

R

RABOUILLEUSE (La), name a.s.sumed by Flore Brazier, who became in turn Madame Jean-Jacques Rouget and Madame Philippe Bridau. (See this last name.)

RABOURDIN (Xavier), born in 1784; his father was unknown to him. His mother, a beautiful and fastidious woman, who lived in luxury, left him a penniless orphan of sixteen. At this time he left the Lycee Napoleon and became a super-numerary clerk in the Treasury Department.

He was soon promoted, becoming second head clerk at twenty-two and head clerk at twenty-five. An unknown, but influential friend, was responsible for this progress, and also gave him an introduction into the home of M. Leprince, a wealthy widower, who had formerly been an auctioneer. Rabourdin met, loved and married this man's only daughter.

Beginning with this time, when his influential friend probably died, Rabourdin saw the end of his own rapid progress. Despite his faithful, intelligent efforts, he occupied at forty the same position. In 1824 the death of M. Flamet de la Billardiere left open the place of division chief. This office, to which Rabourdin had long aspired, was given to the incapable Baudoyer, who had been at the head of a bureau, through the influence of money and the Church. Disgusted, Rabourdin sent in his resignation. He had been responsible for a rather remarkable plan for executive and social reform, and this possibly contributed to his overthrow. During his career as a minister Rabourdin lived on rue Duphot. He had by his wife two children, Charles, born in 1815, and a daughter, born two years later. About 1830 Rabourdin paid a visit to the Bureau of Finances, where he saw once more his former pages, nephews of Antoine, who had retired from service by that time. From these he learned that Colleville and Baudoyer were tax-collectors in Paris. [The Government Clerks.] Under the Empire he was a guest at the evening receptions given by M.

Guillaume, the cloth-dealer of rue Saint-Denis. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.] Later he and his wife were invited to attend the famous ball tendered by Cesar Birotteau, December 17, 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.] In 1840, being still a widower, Rabourdin was one of the directors of a proposed railway. At this time he began to lodge in a house on the Place de la Madeleine, which had been recently bought by the Thuilliers, whom he had known in the Bureau of Finance. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

RABOURDIN (Madame), born Celestine Leprince, in 1796; beautiful, tall and of good figure; reared by an artistic mother; a painter and a good musician; spoke many tongues and even had some knowledge of science.

She was married when very young through the instrumentality of her father, who was then a widower. Her reception-rooms were not open to Jean-Jacques Bixiou, but she was frequently visited by the poet Ca.n.a.lis, the painter Schinner, Doctor Bianchon, who was especially fond of her company; Lucien de Rubempre, Octave de Camps, the Comte de Granville, the Vicomte de Fontaine, F. du Bruel, Andoche Finot, Derville, Chatelet, then deputy; Ferdinand du Tillet, Paul de Mannerville, and the Vicomte de Portenduere. A rival, Madame Colleville, had dubbed Madame Rabourdin "The Celimene of rue Duphot."

Having been over-indulged by her mother, Celestine Leprince thought herself ent.i.tled to a man of high rank. Consequently, although M.

Rabourdin pleased her, she hesitated at first about marrying him, as she did not consider him of high enough station. This did not prevent her loving him sincerely. Although she was very extravagant, she remained always strictly faithful to him. By listening to the demands of Chardin des Lupeaulx, secretary-general in the Department of Finance, who was in love with her, she might have obtained for her husband the position of division chief. Madame Rabourdin's reception days were Wednesdays and Fridays. She died in 1840. [The Commission in Lunacy. The Government Clerks.]

RABOURDIN (Charles), law-student, son of the preceding couple, born in 1815, lived from 1836 to 1838 in a house on rue Corneille, Paris.

There he became acquainted with Z. Marcas, helped him in his distress, attended him on his death-bed, and, with Justi, a medical student, as his only companion, followed the body of this great, but unknown man to the beggar's grave in Montparna.s.se cemetery. After having told some friends the short, but pitiful story of Z. Marcas, Charles Rabourdin, following the advice of the deceased, left the country, and sailed from Havre for the Malayan islands; for he had not been able to gain a foothold in France. [Z. Marcas.]

RACQUETS (Des). (See Raquets, des.)

RAGON born about 1748; a perfumer on rue Saint-Honore, between Saint-Roche and rue des Frondeurs, Paris, towards the close of the eighteenth century; small man, hardly five feet tall, with a face like a nut-cracker, self-important and known for his gallantry. He was succeeded in his business, the "Reine des Roses," by his chief clerk, Cesar Birotteau, after the eighteenth Brumaire. As a former perfumer to Her Majesty Queen Marie-Antoinette, M. Ragon always showed Royalist zeal, and, under the Republic, the Vendeans used him to communicate between the princes and the Royalist committee of Paris. He received at that time the Abbe de Marolles, to whom he pointed out and revealed the person of Louis XVI.'s executioner. In 1818, being a loser in the Nucingen speculation in Wortschin mining stock, Ragon lived with his wife in an apartment on rue du Pet.i.t-Bourbon-Saint-Sulpice. [Cesar Birotteau. An Episode under the Terror.]

RAGON (Madame), born Popinot; sister of Judge Popinot, wife of the preceding, being very nearly the same age as her husband, was in 1818 "a tall slender woman of wrinkled face, sharp nose, thin lips, and the artificial manner of a marchioness of the old line." [Cesar Birotteau.]

RAGOULLEAU[*] (Jean-Antoine), a Parisian lawyer, whose signature the widow Morin tried to extort. She also attempted his a.s.sa.s.sination, and was condemned, January 11, 1812, on the evidence of a number of witnesses, among others that of Poiret, to twenty years of hard labor.

[Father Goriot.]

[*] The real spelling of the name, as shown by some authentic papers, is Ragouleau.

RAGUET, working boy in the establishment of Cesar Birotteau, the perfumer, in 1818. [Cesar Birotteau.]

RAPARLIER, a Douai notary; drew up marriage contracts in 1825 for Marguerite Claes and Emmanuel de Solis, for Felicie Claes and Pierquin the notary, and for Gabriel Claes and Mademoiselle Conyncks. [The Quest for the Absolute.]

RAPARLIER, a Douai auctioneer, under the Restoration; nephew of the preceding; took an inventory at the Claes house after the death of Madame Balthazar Claes in 1816. [The Quest of the Absolute.]

RAPP, French general, born at Colmar in 1772; died in 1821. As aide-de-camp of the First Consul, Bonaparte, he found himself one day in October serving near his chief at the Tuileries, when the proscribed Corsican, Bartolomeo de Piombo, came up rather unexpectedly.

Rapp, who was suspicious of this man, as he was of all Corsicians, wished to stay at Bonaparte's side during the interview, but the Consul good-naturedly sent him away. [The Vendetta.] On October 13, 1806, the day before the battle of Jena, Rapp had just made an important report to the Emperor at the moment when Napoleon was receiving on the next day's battlefield Mademoiselle Laurence de Cinq-Cygne and M. de Chargeboeuf, who had come from France to ask for the pardon of the two Hauteserres and the two Simeuses, people affected by the political suit and condemned to hard labor. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

RAQUETS (Des), lived at Douai, of Flemish descent, and devoted to the traditions and customs of his province; very wealthy uncle of the notary Pierquin, his only heir, who received his inheritance towards the close of the Restoration. [The Quest of the Absolute.]

RASTIGNAC (Chevalier de), great-uncle of Eugene de Rastignac; as vice-admiral was commander of the "Vengeur" before 1789, and lost his entire fortune in the service of the king, as the revolutionary government did not wish to satisfy his demands in the adjusting of the Compagnie des Indes affairs. [Father Goriot.]

RASTIGNAC (Baron and Baronne de) had, near Ruffec, Charente, an estate, where they lived in the latter part of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, and where were born to them five children: Eugene, Laure-Rose, Agathe, Gabriel and Henri. They were poor, and lived in close retirement, keeping a dignified silence, and like their neighbours, the Marquis and Marquise de Pimentel, exercised, through their connection with court circles, a strong influence over the entire province, being invited at various times to the home of Madame de Bargeton, at Angouleme, where they met Lucien de Rubempre and were able to understand him. [Father Goriot. Lost Illusions.]

RASTIGNAC (Eugene de),[*] eldest son of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac, born at Rastignac near Ruffec in 1797. He came to Paris in 1819 to study law; lived at first on the third floor of the Vauquer lodging-house, rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, having then some a.s.sociation with Jacques Collin, called Vautrin, who was especially interested in him and wanted him to marry Victorine Taillefer.

Rastignac became the lover of Madame de Nucingen, second daughter of Joachim Goriot, an old vermicelli-maker, and in February, 1820, lived on rue d'Artois in pretty apartments, rented and furnished by the father of his mistress. Goriot died in his arms. The servant, Christophe, and Rastignac were the only attendants in the good man's funeral procession. At the Vauquer lodging-house he was intimate with Horace Bianchon, a medical student. [Father Goriot.] In 1821, at the Opera, young Rastignac made fun for the occupants of two boxes over the provincialisms of Madame de Bargeton and Lucien de Rubempre, "young Chardon." This led Madame d'Espard to leave the theatre with her relative, thus publicly and in a cowardly way abandoning the distinguished provincial. Some months later Rastignac sought the favor of this same Lucien de Rubempre, who was by that time an influential citizen. He agreed to act with Marsay as the poet's witness in the duel which he fought with Michel Chrestien, in regard to Daniel d'Arthez. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] At the last masquerade ball of 1824 Rastignac found Rubempre, who had disappeared from Paris some time before. Vautrin, recalling his memories of the Vauquer lodging-house, urged him authoritatively to treat Lucien as a friend. Shortly after, Rastignac became a frequenter of the sumptuous mansion furnished by Nucingen for Esther van Gobseck on rue Saint-Georges. Rastignac was present at Lucien de Rubempre's funeral in May, 1830. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] About the same time the Comte de Fontaine asked his daughter Emilie what she thought of Rastignac--among several others--as a possible husband for her. But knowing the relations of this youthful aspirant with Madame de Nucingen, she saved herself by replying maliciously. [The Ball at Sceaux.] In 1828 Rastignac sought to become Madame d'Espard's lover, but was restrained by his friend, Doctor Bianchon. [The Interdiction.]

During the same year Rastignac was treated slightingly by Madame de Listomere, because he asked her to return a letter, which through mistake had been sent to her, but which he had meant for Madame de Nucingen. [A Study of Woman.] After the Revolution of July he was a guest at Mademoiselle des Touches's evening party, where Marsay told the story of his first love. [Another Study of Woman.] At this time he was intimate with Raphael de Valentin, and expected to marry an Alsatian. [The Magic Skin.] In 1832, Rastignac, having been appointed a baron, was under-secretary of state in the department of which Marsay was the minister. [The Secrets of a Princess.] In 1833-34, he volunteered as nurse at the bedside of the dying minister, in the hope of being remembered in his will. One evening about this same time he took Raoul Nathan and Emile Blondet, whom he had met in society, to supper with him at Very's. He then advised Nathan to profit by the advances made him by the Comtesse Felix de Vandenesse. [A Daughter of Eve.] In 1833, at the Princesse de Cadignan's home, in the presence of the Marquise d'Espard, the old Ducs de Lenoncourt and de Navarreins, the Comte and the Comtesse de Vandenesse, D'Arthez, two amba.s.sadors, and two well-known orators of the Chamber of Peers, Rastignac heard his minister reveal the secrets of the abduction of Senator Malin, an affair which took place in 1806. [The Gondreville Mystery.] In 1836, having become enriched by the third Nucingen failure, in which he was more or less a willing accomplice, he became possessed of an income of forty thousand francs. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In 1838 he attended the opening reception given at Josepha's mansion on rue de la Ville-l'Eveque.

He was also witness at Hortense Hulot's marriage to Wenceslas Steinbock.

He married Augusta de Nucingen, daughter of Delphine de Nucingen, his former mistress, whom he had quitted five years previously. In 1839, Rastignac, minister once more, and this time of public works, was made count almost in spite of himself. In 1845 he was, moreover, made a peer. He had then an income of 300,000 francs. He was in the habit of saying: "There is no absolute virtue, all things are dependent on circ.u.mstances." [Cousin Betty. The Member for Arcis. The Unconscious Humorists.]

[*] In a recent publication of Monsieur S. de Lovenjoul, he speaks of a recent abridged biography of Eugene de Rastignac.

RASTIGNAC (Laure-Rose and Agathe de),[*] sisters of Eugene de Rastignac; second and third children of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac; Laure, the elder, born in 1801; Agathe, the second, born in 1802; both were reared unostentatiously in the Rastignac chateau. In 1819 they sent what they had saved by economy to their brother Eugene, then a student. Several years after, when he was wealthy and powerful, he married one of them to Martial de la Roche-Hugon, the other to a minister. In 1821, Laure, with her father and mother, was present at a reception of M. de Bargeton's, where she admired Lucien de Rubempre.

[Father Goriot. Lost Illusions.] Madame de la Roche-Hugon in 1839 took her several daughters to a children's dance at Madame de l'Estorade's in Paris. [The Member for Arcis.]

[*] The Mesdemoiselles de Rastignac are here placed together under their maiden name, as it is not known which one married Martial de la Roche-Hugon.

RASTIGNAC (Monseigneur Gabriel de), brother of Eugene de Rastignac; one of the youngest two children of the Baron and Baronne de Rastignac; was private secretary to the Bishop of Limoges towards the end of the Restoration, during the trial of Tascheron. In 1832 he became, when only a young man of thirty, a bishop. He was consecrated by the Archbishop Dutheil. [Father Goriot. The Country Parson. A Daughter of Eve.]

RASTIGNAC (Henri de), the fifth child, probably of the Baron de Rastignac and his wife. Nothing is known of his life. [Father Goriot.]

RATEL, gendarme in the Orne district; in 1809, along with his fellow-officer, Mallet, was charged with the capture of "Lady" Bryond des Miniares, who was implicated in the affair known as the "Chauffeurs de Mortagne." He found the fugitive, but, instead of arresting her, allowed himself to be unduly influenced by her, and then protected her and let her escape. This action on his part was known to Mallet.

Ratel, when imprisoned, confessed all, and committed suicide before the time a.s.signed for trial. [The Seamy Side of History.]

RAVENOUILLET, porter in Bixiou's house, at No. 112 rue Richelieu, in 1845; son of a Carca.s.sonne grocer; a steward throughout his life and owed his first position to his fellow-countryman, Ma.s.sol.

Ravenouillet, although uneducated was not unintelligent. According to Bixiou, he was the "Providence at thirty per cent" of the seventy-one lodgers in the house, through whom he netted in the neighborhood of six thousand francs a month. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

RAVENOUILLET (Madame), wife of the preceding. [The Unconscious Humorists.]