Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 43

SAINTE-SEVERE (Madame de), cousin to Gaston de Nueil, lived in Bayeux, where she received, in 1822, her young kinsman, just convalescing from some inflammatory disorder caused by excess in study or in pleasure.

[The Deserted Woman.]

SAINT-ESTEVE (De), name of Jacques Collin as chief of the secret police.

SAINT-ESTEVE (Madame de), an a.s.sumed name, shared by Madame Jacqueline Collin and Madame Nourrisson.

SAINT-FOUDRILLE (De), a "brilliant scholar," lived in Paris, and most likely in the Saint-Jacques district, at least about 1840, the time when Thuillier wished to know him. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

SAINT-FOUDRILLE (Madame de), wife of the preceding, received, about 1840, a very attentive visit from the Thuillier family. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

SAINT-GEORGES (Chevalier de), 1745-1801, a mulatto, of superb figure and features, son of a former general; captain of the guards of the Duc d'Orleans; served with distinction under Dumouriez; arrested in 1794 on suspicion, and released after the 9th Thermidor; he became distinguished in the pleasing art of music, and especially in the art of fencing. The Chevalier de Saint-Georges traded at the Cat and Racket on the rue Saint-Denis, but did not pay his debts. Monsieur Guillaume had obtained a judgment of the consular government against him. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.] Later he was made popular by a production of a comedie-vaudeville of Roger de Beauvoir, at the Varietees under Louis Philippe, with the comedian Lafont[*] as interpreter.

[*] Complimented in 1836, at the chateau of Madame de la Baudraye, by Etienne Lousteau and Horace Bianchon.

SAINT-GERMAIN (De), one of the a.s.sumed names of police-agent Peyrade.

SAINT-HEREEN (Comte de), husband of Moina d'Aiglemont, was heir of one of the most ill.u.s.trious houses of France. He lived with his wife and mother-in-law in a house belonging to the former, on the rue Plumet (now rue Oudinot), adjoining the Boulevard des Invalides; about the middle of December, 1843, he left this house alone to go on a political mission; during this time his wife received too willingly the frequent and compromising visits of young Alfred de Vandenesse, and his mother-in-law died suddenly. [A Woman of Thirty.]

SAINT-HEREEN (Countess Moina de), wife of the preceding; of five children she was the only one that survived Monsieur and Madame d'Aiglemont, in the second half of Louis Philippe's reign. Blindly spoiled by her mother, she repaid that almost exclusive affection by coldness only, or even disdain. By a cruel word Moina caused the death of her mother; she dared, indeed, to recall to her mother her former relations with Marquis Charles de Vandenesse, whose son Alfred she herself was receiving with too much pleasure in the absence of Monsieur de Saint-Hereen. [A Woman of Thirty.] In a conversation concerning love with the Marquise de Vandenesse, Lady Dudley, Mademoiselle des Touches, the Marquise of Rochefide, and Madame d'Espard, Moina laughingly remarked: "A lover is forbidden fruit, a statement that sums up the whole case with me." [A Daughter of Eve.]

Madame Octave de Camps, referring to Nais de l'Estorade, then a girl, made the following cutting remark: "That little girl makes me anxious; she reminds me of Moina d'Aiglemont." [The Member for Arcis.]

SAINT-MARTIN (Louis-Claude de), called the "Unknown Philosopher," was born on the 18th of January, 1743, at Amboise, and died October 13, 1803; he was very often received at Clochegourde by Madame de Verneuil, an aunt of Madame de Mortsauf, who knew him there. At Clochegourde, Saint-Martin superintended the publication of his last books, which were printed at Letourmy's in Tours. [The Lily of the Valley.]

SAINT-VIER (Madame de). (See Gentillet.)

SAINTOT (Astolphe de), one of the frequenters of the Bargeton salon at Angouleme; president of the society of agriculture of his town; though "ignorant as a carp," he pa.s.sed for a scholar of the first rank; and, though he did nothing, he let it be believed that he had been occupied for several years with writing a treatise on modern methods of cultivation. His success in the world was due, for the most part, to quotations from Cicero, learned by heart in the morning and recited in the evening. Though a tall, stout, red-faced man, Saintot seemed to be ruled by his wife. [Lost Illusions.]

SAINTOT (Madame de), wife of the preceding. Her Christian name was Elisa, and she was usually called Lili, a childish designaton that was in strong contrast with the character of this lady, who was dry and solemn, extremely pious, and a cross and quarrelsome card-player.

[Lost Illusions.]

SALLENAUVE (Francois-Henri-Pantaleon-Dumirail, Marquis de), a n.o.ble of Champagne, lost and ruined by cards, in his old age was reduced to the degree of a street-sweep, under the service of Jacques Bricheteau.

[The Member for Arcis.]

SALLENAUVE (Comte de), legal son of the preceding, was born in 1809 of the relations of Catherine-Antoinette Goussard and Jacques Collin; grandson of Danton through his mother; school-mate of Marie Gaston, whose friend he continued to be, and for whom he fought a duel. For a long time he knew nothing of his family, but lived almost to the age of thirty under the name of Charles Dorlange. [The Member for Arcis.]

SALLENAUVE (Comtesse de), wife of the preceding, born Jeanne-Athenais de l'Estorade (Nais, by familiar abbreviation) in February, 1827; the precocious and rather spoilt child of the Comte and Comtesse Louis de l'Estorade. [Letters of Two Brides. The Member for Arcis.]

SALMON, formerly expert in the museum at Paris. In 1826, while on a visit at Tours, whither he had gone to see his mother-in-law, he was engaged to a.s.sess a "Virgin" by Valentin and a "Christ" by Lebrun, paintings which Abbe Francois Birotteau had inherited from Abbe Chapeloud, having left them in an apartment recently occupied by himself at Mademoiselle Sophie Gamard's. [The Vicar of Tours.]

SALOMON (Joseph), of Tours, or near Tours, uncle and guardian to Pauline Salomon de Villenoix, a very rich Jewess. He was deeply attached to his niece and wished a brilliant match for her. Louis Lambert, who was engaged to Pauline, said: "This terrible Salomon freezes me; this man is not of our heaven." [Louis Lambert.]

SAMANON, a squint-eyed speculator, followed the various professions of a money-handler during the reigns of Louis XVIII., Charles X., and Louis Philippe. In 1821, Lucien de Rubempre, still a novice, visited Samanon's establishment in the Faubourg Poissonniere, where he was then engaged in the numerous trades of dealing in old books and old clothes, of brokerage, and of discount. There he found a certain great man of unknown ident.i.ty, a Bohemian and cynic, who had come to borrow his own clothes that he had left in p.a.w.n. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] Nearly three years later, Samanon was the man of straw of the Gobseck-Bidault (Gigonnet) combination, who were persecuting Chardin des Lupeaulx for the payment of debts due them. [The Government Clerks.] After 1830, the usurer joined with the Cerizets and the Claparons when they tried to circ.u.mvent Maxime de Trailles. [A Man of Business.] The same Samanon, about 1844, had bills to the value of ten thousand francs against Baron Hulot d'Ervy, who was seeking refuge under the name of Father Vyder. [Cousin Betty.]

SAN-ESTEBAN (Marquise de), a foreign and aristocratic sounding a.s.sumed name, under which Jacqueline Collin disguised herself when she visited the Conciergerie, in May, 1830, to see Jacques Collin, himself under the incognito of Carlos Herrera. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

SAN-REAL (Don Hijos, Marquis de), born about 1735, a powerful n.o.bleman; he enjoyed the friendship of Ferdinand VII., King of Spain, and married a natural daughter of Lord Dudley, Margarita-Euphemia Porraberil (born of a Spanish mother), with whom he lived in Paris, in 1815, in a mansion on the rue Saint-Lazare, near Nucingen. [The Thirteen.]

SAN REAL (Marquise de), wife of the preceding, born Margarita-Euphemia Porraberil, natural daughter of Lord Dudley and a Spanish woman, and sister of Henri de Marsay; had the restless energy of her brother, whom she resembled also in appearance. Brought up at Havana, she was then taken back to Madrid, accompanied by a creole girl of the Antilles, Paquita Valdes, with whom she maintained pa.s.sionate unnatural relations, that marriage did not interrupt and which were being continued in Paris in 1815, when the marquise, meeting a rival in her brother, Henri de Marsay, killed Paquita. After this murder, Madame de San Real retired to Spain to the convent of Los Dolores.

[The Thirteen.]

SANSON (Charles-Henri), public executioner in the period of the Revolution, and beheader of Louis XVI.; he attended two ma.s.ses commemorating the death of the King, celebrated in 1793 and 1794, by the Abbe de Marolles, to whom his ident.i.ty was afterwards disclosed by Ragon. [An Episode under the Terror.]

SANSON, son of the preceding, born about 1770, descended, as was his father, from headsmen of Rouen. After having been captain of cavalry he a.s.sisted his father in the execution of Louis XVI.; was his agent when scaffolds were operated at the same time in the Place Louis XV.

and the Place du Trone, and eventually succeeded him. Sanson was prepared to "accommodate" Theodore Calvi in May, 1830; he awaited the condemning order, which was not issued. He had the appearance of a rather distinguished Englishman. At least Sanson gave Jacques Collin that impression, when he met the ex-convict, then confined at the Conciergerie. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Sanson lived in the rue des Marais (the district of the Faubourg Saint-Martin), which is a much shorter street now than formerly.

SARCUS was justice of the peace, in the reign of Louis XVIII., at Soulanges (Bourgogne), where he lived on his fifteen hundred francs, together with the rent of a house in which he lived, and three hundred francs from the public funds. Sarcus married the elder sister of Vermut, the druggist of Soulanges, by whom he had a daughter, Adeline, afterwards Madame Adolphe Sibilet. This functionary of inferior order, a handsome little old man with iron-gray hair, was none the less the politician of the first order in the society of Soulanges, which was completely under Madame Soudry's sway, and which counted almost all Montcornet's enemies. [The Peasantry.]

SARCUS, cousin in the third degree of the preceding; called Sarcus the Rich; in 1817 a counselor at the prefecture of the department of Bourgogne, which Monsieur de la Roche-Hugon and Monsieur de Casteran governed successively under the Restoration, and which included as dependencies Ville-aux-Fayes, Soulanges, Blangy, and Aigues. He recommended Sibilet as steward for Aigues, which was Montcornet's estate. Sarcus the Rich was a member of the Chamber of Deputies; he was also said to be right-hand man to the prefect. [The Peasantry.]

SARCUS (Madame), wife of the preceding; born Vallat, in 1778, of a family connected with the Gaubertins, was supposed in her youth to have favored Monsieur Lupin, who, in 1823, was still paying devoted attentions to this woman of forty-five, the mother of an engineer.

[The Peasantry.]

SARCUS, son of the preceding couple, became, in 1823, general engineer of bridges and causeways of Ville-aux-Fayes, thus completing the group of powerful native families hostile to the Montcornets. [The Peasantry.]

SARCUS-TAUPIN, a miller at Soulanges, who enjoyed an income of fifty thousand francs; the Nucingen of his town; was father of a daughter whose hand was sought by Lupin, the notary, and by President Gendrin for their respective sons. [The Peasantry.]

SARRASINE (Matthieu or Mathieu), a laborer in the neighborhood of Saint-Die, father of a rich lawyer of Franche-Comte, and grandfather of the sculptor, Ernest-Jean Sarrasine. [Sarrasine.]

SARRASINE, a rich lawyer of Franche-Comte in the eighteenth century, father of the sculptor, Ernest-Jean Sarrasine. [Sarrasine.]

SARRASINE (Ernest-Jean), a famous French sculptor, son of the preceding and grandson of Matthieu Sarrasine. When quite young he showed a calling for art strong enough to combat the will of his father, who wished him to adopt the legal profession; he went to Paris, entered Bouchardon's studio, found a friend and protector in this master; became acquainted with Madame Geoffrin, Sophie Arnould, the Baron d'Holbach, and J.-J. Rousseau. Having become the lover of Clotilde, the famous singer at the Opera, Sarrasine won the sculptor's prize founded by Marigny, a brother of La Pompadour, and received praise from Diderot. He then went to Rome to live (1758); became intimate with Vien, Louthrebourg,[*] Allegrain, Vitagliani, Cicognara, and Chigi. He then fell madly in love with the eunuch Zambinella, uncle of the Lanty-Duvignons; believing him to be a woman, he made a magnificent bust of the singular singer, who was kept by Cicognara, and, having carried him off, was murdered at the instigation of his rival in the same year, 1758. The story of Sarrasine's life was related, during the Restoration, to Beatrix de Rochefide. [Sarrasine.

The Member for Arcis.]

[*] Or Louthrebourg, and also Lauterbourg, intentionally left out in the Repertory because of the various ways of spelling the name.

SAUTELOUP, familiarly called "Father Sauteloup," had the task, in May, 1830, of reading to Theodore Calvi, who was condemned to death and a prisoner in the Conciegerie, the denial of his pet.i.tion for appeal.

[Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

SAUVAGE (Madame), a person of repulsive appearance, and of doubtful morality, the servant-mistress of Maitre Fraisier; on the death of Pons, kept house for Schmucke, who inherited from Pons to the prejudice of the Camusot de Marvilles. [Cousin Pons.]

SAUVAGE, first deputy of the king's attorney at Alencon; a young magistrate, married, harsh, stiff, ambitious, and selfish; took sides against Victurnien d'Esgrignon in the notorious affair known as the D'Esgrignon-Du-Bousquier case; after the famous lawsuit he was sent to Corsica. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

SAUVAGNEST, successor of the attorney Bordin, and predecessor of Maitre Desroches; was an attorney in Paris. [A Start in Life.]

SAUVAIGNOU (of Ma.r.s.eilles), a head carpenter, had a hand in the sale of the house on the Place de la Madeleine which was bought in 1840, by the Thuilliers at the urgent instance of Cerizet, Claparon, Dutocq, and especially Theodose de la Peyrade. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

SAUVIAT (Jerome-Baptiste), born in Auvergne, about 1747; a traveling tradesman from 1792 to 1796; of commercial tastes, rough, energetic, and avaricious; of a profoundly religious nature; was imprisoned during the Terror; barely escaped being beheaded for abetting the escape of a bishop; married Mademoiselle Champagnac at Limoges in 1797; had by her a daughter, Veronique (Madame Pierre Graslin); after the death of his father-in-law, he bought, in the same town, the house which he was occupying as tenant and where he sold old iron; he continued his business there; retired from business in wealth, but still, at a later period, went as superintendent into a porcelain factory with J.-F. Tascheron; gave his attention to that work for at least three years, and died then through an accident in 1827. [The Country Parson.]

SAUVIAT (Madame), wife of the preceding; born Champagnac, about 1767; daughter of a coppersmith of Limoges, who became a widower in 1797, and from whom she afterwards inherited. Madame Sauviat lived, in turn, near the rue de la Vieille-Poste, a suburb of Limoges, and at Montegnac. Like Sauviat, she was industrious, rough, grasping, economical, and hard, but pious withal; and like him, too, she adored Veronique, whose terrible secret she knew,--a sort of Marcellange affair.[*] [The Country Parson.]

[*] A famous criminal case of the time.

SAVARON DE SAVARUS, a n.o.ble and wealthy family, whose various members known in the eighteenth century were as follows: Savaron de Savarus (of Tournai), a Fleming, true to Flemish traditions, with whom the Claes and the Pierquins seem to have had transactions. [The Quest of the Absolute.] Mademoiselle Savarus, a native of Brabant, a wealthy unmarried heiress; Savarus (Albert), a French attorney, descended, but not lineally, from the Comte de Savarus. [Albert Savarus.]

SAVARUS (Albert Savaron de), of the family of the preceding list, but natural son of the Comte de Savarus, was born about 1798; was secretary to a minister of Charles X., and was also Master of Requests. The Revolution of 1830 fatally interrupted a very promising career; a deep love, which was reciprocated, for the d.u.c.h.esse d'Argaiolo (afterwards Madame Alphonse de Rhetore), restored to Savarus his energetic and enterprising spirit; he succeeded in being admitted to the bar of Besancon, built up a good practice, succeeded brilliantly, founded the "Revue de l'Est," in which he published an autobiographic novel, "L'Ambitieux par Amour," and met with warm support in his candidacy for the Chamber of Deputies (1834). Albert Savarus, with his mask of a deep thinker, might have seen all his dreams realized, but for the romantic and jealous fancies of Rosalie de Watteville, who discovered and undid the advocate's plans, by bringing about the second marriage of Madame d'Argaiolo. His hopes thus baffled, Albert Savarus became a friar of the parent inst.i.tution of the Carthusians, which was situated near Gren.o.ble, and was known as Brother Albert. [The Quest of the Absolute. Albert Savarus.]

SCHERBELLOFF, Scherbelloff, or Sherbelloff (Princesse), maternal grandmother of Madame de Montcornet. [The Peasantry. Jealousies of a Country Town.]