Works of Honore De Balzac, page 1552
ALDRIGGER (Malvina d’), elder daughter of the Baron and Baroness d’Aldrigger, born at Strasbourg in 1801, at the time when the family was most wealthy. Dignified, slender, swarthy, sensuous, she was a good type of the woman “you have seen at Barcelona.” Intelligent, haughty, whole-souled, sentimental and sympathetic, she was nevertheless smitten by the dry Ferdinand du Tillet, who sought her hand in marriage at one time, but forsook her when he learned of the bankruptcy of the Aldrigger family. The lawyer Desroches also considered asking the hand of Malvina, but he too gave up the idea. The young girl was counseled by Eugene de Rastignac, who took it upon himself to see that she got married. Nevertheless, she ended by being an old maid, withering day by day, giving piano lessons, living rather meagrely with her mother in a modest flat on the third floor, in the rue du Mont-Thabor. The Firm of Nucingen.
ALDRIGGER (Isaure d’), second daughter of the Baron and Baronne d’Aldrigger, married to Godefroid de Beaudenord (See that name.) The Firm of Nucingen.
ALINE, a young Auvergne chambermaid in the service of Madame Veronique Graslin, to whom she was devoted body and soul. She was probably the only one to whom was confided all the terrible secrets pertaining to the life of Madame Graslin. The Country Parson.
ALLEGRAIN* (Christophe-Gabriel), French sculptor, born in 1710. With Lauterbourg and Vien, at Rome, in 1758, he assisted his friend Sarrasine to abduct Zambinella, then a famous singer. The prima-donna was a eunuch. Sarrasine.
* To the sculptor Allegrain who died in 1795, the Louvre Museum is indebted for a “Narcisse,” a “Diana,” and a “Venus entering the Bath.”
ALPHONSE, a friend of the ruined orphan, Charles Grandet, tarrying temporarily at Saumur. In 1819 he acquitted himself most creditably of a mission entrusted to him by that young man. He wound up Charles’ business at Paris, paying all his debts by a single little sale. Eugenie Grandet.
AL-SARTCHILD, name of a German banking-house, where Gedeon Brunner was compelled to deposit the funds belonging to his son Frederic and inherited from his mother. Cousin Pons.
ALTHOR (Jacob), a Hambourg banker, who opened up a business at Havre in 1815. He had a son, whom in 1829 M. and Mme. Mignon desired for a son-in-law. Modeste Mignon.
ALTHOR (Francisque), son of Jacob Althor. Francisque was the dandy of Havre in 1829. He wished to marry Modeste Mignon but forsook her quickly enough when he found out that her family was bankrupt. Not long afterwards he married Mlle. Vilquin the elder. Modeste Mignon.
AMANDA, Parisian modiste at the time of Louis Philippe. Among her customers was Marguerite Turquet, known as Malaga, who was slow in paying bills. A Man of Business.
AMAURY (Madame), owner, in 1829, of a pavilion at Sauvic, near Ingouville, which Canalis leased when he went to Havre to see Mlle. Mignon Modeste Mignon.
AMBERMESNIL (Comtesse de l’) went in 1819, when about thirty-six years old, to board with the widow, Mme. Vauquer, rue Nueve Sainte-Genevieve, now Tournefort, Paris. Mme. de l’Ambermesnil gave it out that she was awaiting the settlement of a pension which was due her on account of being the widow of a general killed “on the battlefield.” Mme. Vauquer gave her every attention, confiding all her own affairs to her. The comtesse vanished at the end of six months, leaving a board bill unsettled. Mme. Vauquer sought her eagerly, but was never able to obtain a trace of this adventuress. Father Goriot.
AMEDEE, nickname bestowed on Felix de Vandenesse by Lady Dudley when she thought she saw a rival in Madame de Mortsauf. The Lily of the Valley.
ANCHISE (Pere), a surname given by La Palferine to a little Savoyard of ten years who worked for him without pay. “I have never seen such silliness coupled with such intelligence,” the Prince of Bohemia said of this child; “he would go through fire for me, he understands everything, and yet he does not see that I cannot help him.” A Prince of Bohemia.
ANGARD — At Paris, in 1840, the “professor” Angard was consulted, in connection with the Doctors Bianchon and Larabit, on account of Mme. Hector Hulot, who it was feared was losing her reason. Cousin Betty.
ANGELIQUE (Sister), nun of the Carmelite convent at Blois under Louis XVIII. Celebrated for her leanness. She was known by Renee de l’Estorade (Mme. de Maucombe) and Louise de Chaulieu (Mme. Marie Gaston), who went to school at the convent. Letters of Two Brides.
ANICETTE, chambermaid of the Princesse de Cadignan in 1839. The artful and pretty Champagne girl was sought by the sub-prefect of Arcis-sur-Aube, by Maxime de Trailles, and by Mme. Beauvisage, the mayor’s wife, each trying to bribe and enlist her on the side of one of the various candidates for deputy. The Member for Arcis.
ANNETTE, Christian name of a young woman of the Parisian world, under the Restoration. She had been brought up at Ecouen, where she had received the practical counsels of Mme. Campan. Mistress of Charles Grandet before his father’s death. Towards the close of 1819, a prey to suspicion, she must needs sacrifice her happiness for the time being, so she made a weary journey with her husband into Scotland. She made her lover effeminate and materialistic, advising with him about everything. He returned from the Indies in 1827, when she quickly brought about his engagement with Mlle. d’Aubrion. Eugenie Grandet.
ANNETTE, maid servant of Rigou at Blangy, Burgundy. She was nineteen years old, in 1823, and had held this place for more than three years, although Gregoire Rigou never kept servants for a longer period than this, however much he might and did favor them. Annette, sweet, blonde, delicate, a true masterpiece of dainty, piquant loveliness, worthy to wear a duchess’ coronet, earned nevertheless only thirty francs a year. She kept company with Jean-Louis Tonsard without letting her master once suspect it; ambition had prompted this young woman to flatter her employer as a means of hoodwinking this lynx. The Peasantry.
ANSELME, Jesuit, living in rue des Postes (now rue Lhomond). Celebrated mathematician. Had some dealings with Felix Phellion, whom he tried to convert to his religious belief. This rather meagre information concerning him was furnished by a certain Madame Komorn. The Middle Classes.
ANTOINE, born in the village of Echelles, Savoy. In 1824 he had served longest as clerk in the Bureau of Finance, where he had secured positions, still more modest than his own, for a couple of his nephews, Laurent and Gabriel, both of whom were married to lace laundresses. Antoine meddled with every act of the administration. He elbowed, criticised, scolded and toadied to Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx and other office-holders. He doubtless lived with his nephews. The Government Clerks.
ANTOINE, old servant of the Marquise Beatrix de Rochefide, in 1840, on the rue de Chartes-du-Roule, near Monceau Park, Paris. Beatrix.
ANTONIA — see Chocardelle, Mlle.
AQUILINA, a Parisian courtesan of the time of the Restoration and Louis Philippe. She claimed to be a Piedmontese. Of her true name she was ignorant. She had appropriated this nom de guerre from a character in the well-known tragedy by Otway, “Venice Preserved,” that she had chanced to read. At sixteen, pure and beautiful, at the time of her downfall, she had met Castanier, Nucingen’s cashier, who resolved to save her from evil for his own gain, and live maritally with her in the rue Richter. Aquilina then took the name of Madame de la Garde. At the same time of her relations with Castanier, she had for a lover a certain Leon, a petty officer in a regiment of infantry, and none other than one of the sergeants of Rochelle to be executed on the Place de Greve in 1822. Before this execution, in the reign of Louis XVIII., she attended a performance of “Le Comedien d’Etampes,” one evening at the Gymnase, when she laughed immoderately at the comical part played by Perlet. At the same time, Castanier, also present at this mirthful scene, but harassed by Melmoth, was experiencing the insufferable doom of a cruel hidden drama. Melmoth Reconciled. Her next appearance is at a famous orgy at the home of Frederic Taillefer, rue Joubert, in company with Emile Blondet, Rastignac, Bixiou and Raphael de Valentin. She was a magnificent girl of good figure, superb carriage, and striking though irregular features. Her glance and smile startled one. She always included some red trinket in her attire, in memory of her executed lover. The Magic Skin.
ARCOS (Comte d’), a Spanish grandee living in the Peninsula at the time of the expedition of Napoleon I. He would probably have married Maria-Pepita-Juana Marana de Mancini, had it not been for the peculiar incidents which brought about her marriage with the French officer, Francois Diard. The Maranas.
ARGAIOLO (Duc d’), a very rich and well-born Italian, the respected though aged husband of her who later became the Duchesse de Rhetore, to the perpetual grief of Albert Savarus. Argaiolo died, almost an octogenarian, in 1835. Albert Savarus.
ARGAIOLO (Duchesse d’), nee Soderini, wife of the Duc d’Argaiolo. She became a widow in 1835, and took as her second husband the Duc de Rhetore. (See Duchesse de Rhetore.) Albert Savarus.
ARRACHELAINE, surname of the rogue, Ruffard. (See that name.) Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
ARTHEZ (Daniel d’), one of the most illustrious authors of the nineteenth century, and one of those rare men who display “the unity of excellent talent and excellent character.” Born about 1794 or 1796. A Picard gentleman. In 1821, when about twenty-five, he was poverty-stricken and dwelt on the fifth floor of a dismal house in the rue des Quatre-Vents, Paris, where had also resided the illustrious surgeon Desplein, in his youth. There he fraternized with: Horace Bianchon, then house-physician at Hotel-Dieu; Leon Giraud, the profound philosopher; Joseph Bridau, the painter who later achieved so much renown; Fulgence Ridal, comic poet of great sprightliness; Meyraux, the eminent physiologist who died young; lastly, Louis Lambert and Michel Chrestien, the Federalist Republican, both of whom were cut off in their prime. To these men of heart and of talent Lucien de Rubempre, the poet, sought to attach himself. He was introduced by Daniel d’Arthez, their recognized leader. This society had taken the name of the “Cenacle.” D’Arthez and his friends advised and aided, when in need, Lucien the “Distinguished Provincial at Paris” who ended so tragically. Moreover, with a truly remarkable disinterestedness d’Arthez corrected and revised “The Archer of Charles IX.,” written by Lucien, and the work became a superb book, in his hands. Another glimpse of d’Arthez is as the unselfish friend of Marie Gaston, a young poet of his stamp, but “effeminate.” D’Arthez was swarthy, with long locks, rather small and bearing some resemblance to Bonaparte. He might be called the rival of Rousseau, “the Aquatic,” since he was very temperate, very pure, and drank water only. For a long time he ate at Flicoteaux’s in the Latin Quarter. He had grown famous in 1832, besides enjoying an income of thirty thousand francs bequeathed by an uncle who had left him a prey to the most biting poverty so long as the author was unknown. D’Arthez then resided in a pretty house of his own in the rue de Bellefond, where he lived in other respects as formerly, in the rigor of work. He was a deputy sitting on the right and upholding the Royalist platform of Divine Right. When he had acquired a competence, he had a most vulgar and incomprehensible liaison with a woman tolerably pretty, but belonging to a lower society and without either education or breeding. D’Arthez maintained her, nevertheless, carefully concealing her from sight; but, far from being a pleasurable manner of life, it became odious to him. It was at this time that he was invited to the home of Diane de Maufrigneuse, Princesse de Cadignan, who was then thirty-six, but did not look it. The famous “great coquette” told him her (so-called) “secrets,” offered herself outright to this man whom she treated as a “famous simpleton,” and whom she made her lover. After that day there was no doubt about the relations of the princesse and Daniel d’Arthez. The great author, whose works became very rare, appeared only during some of the winter months at the Chamber of Deputies. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Letters of Two Brides. The Member for Arcis. The Secrets of a Princess.
ASIE, one of the pseudonyms of Jacqueline Collin. (See that name.) Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
ATHALIE, cook for Mme. Schontz in 1836. According to her mistress, she was specially gifted in preparing venison. The Muse of the Department.
AUBRION (Marquis d’), a gentleman-in-waiting of the Bedchamber, under Charles X. He was of the house of Aubrion de Buch, whose last head died before 1789. He was silly enough to wed a woman of fashion, though he was already an old man of but twenty thousand francs income, a sum hardly sufficient in Paris. He tried to marry his daughter without a dowry to some man who was intoxicated with nobility. In 1827, to quote Mme. d’Aubrion, this ancient wreck was madly devoted to the Duchesse de Chaulieu Eugenie Grandet.
AUBRION (Marquise d’), wife of the preceding. Born in 1789. At thirty-eight she was still pretty, and, having always been somewhat aspiring, she endeavored (in 1827), by hook or by crook, to entangle Charles Grandet, lately returned from the Indies. She wished to make a son-in-law out of him, and she succeeded. Eugenie Grandet.
AUBRION (Mathilde d’) daughter of the Marquis and Marquise d’Aubrion; born in 1808; married to Charles Grandet. (See that name.) Eugenie Grandet.
AUBRION (Comte d’), the title acquired by Charles Grandet after his marriage to the daughter of the Marquis d’Aubrion. The Firm of Nucingen.
AUFFRAY, grocer at Provins, in the period of Louis XV., Louis XVI. and the Revolution. M. Auffray married the first time when eighteen, the second time at sixty-nine. By his first wife he had a rather ugly daughter who married, at sixteen, a landlord of Provins, Rogron by name. Auffray had another daughter, by his second marriage, a charming girl, this time, who married a Breton captain in the Imperial Guard. Pierrette Lorrain was the daughter of this officer. The old grocer Auffray died at the time of the Empire without having had time enough to make his will. The inheritance was so skillfully manipulated by Rogron, the first son-in-law of the deceased, that almost nothing was left for the goodman’s widow, then only about thirty-eight years old. Pierrette.
AUFFRAY (Madame), wife of the preceding. (See Neraud, Mme.) Pierrette.
AUFFRAY, a notary of Provins in 1827. Husband of Mme. Guenee’s third daughter. Great-grand-nephew of the old grocer, Auffray. Appointed a guardian of Pierrette Lorrain. On account of the ill-treatment to which this young girl was subjected at the home of her guardian, Denis Rogron, she was removed, an invalid, to the home of the notary Auffray, a designated guardian, where she died, although tenderly cared for. Pierrette.
AUFFRAY (Madame), born Guenee. Wife of the preceding. The third daughter of Mme. Guenee, born Tiphaine. She exhibited the greatest kindness for Pierrette Lorrain, and nursed her tenderly in her last illness. Pierrette.
AUGUSTE, name borne by Boislaurier, as chief of “brigands,” in the uprisings of the West under the Republic and under the Empire. The Seamy Side of History.
AUGUSTE, valet de chambre of the General Marquis Armand de Montriveau, under the Restoration, at the time when the latter dwelt in the rue de Seine hard by the Chamber of Peers, and was intimate with the Duchesse Antoinette de Langeais. The Thirteen.
AUGUSTE, notorious assassin, executed in the first years of the Restoration. He left a mistress, surnamed Rousse, to whom Jacques Collin had faithfully remitted (in 1819) some twenty odd thousands of francs, on behalf of her lover after his execution. This woman was married in 1821, by Jacques Collin’s sister, to the head clerk of a rich, wholesale hardware merchant. Nevertheless, though once more in respectable society, she remained bound, by a secret compact, to the terrible Vautrin and his sister. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
AUGUSTE (Madame), dressmaker of Esther Gobseck, and her creditor in the time of Louis XVIII. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
AUGUSTIN, valet de chambre of M. de Serizy in 1822. A Start in Life.
AURELIE, a Parisian courtesan, under Louis Philippe, at the time when Mme. Fabien du Ronceret commenced her conquests. Beatrix.
AURELIE (La Petite), one of the nicknames of Josephine Schiltz, also called Schontz, who became, later, Mme. Fabien du Ronceret. Beatrix.
AUVERGNAT (L’), one of the assumed names of the rogue Selerier, alias Pere Ralleau, alias Rouleur, alias Fil-de-soie. (See Selerier.) Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
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BABYLAS, groom or “tiger” of Amedee de Soulas, in 1834, at Besancon. Was fourteen years old at this time. The son of one of his master’s tenants. He earned thirty-six francs a month by his position to support himself, but he was neat and skillful. Albert Savarus.
BAPTISTE, valet de chambre to the Duchesse de Lenoncourt-Chaulieu in 1830. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
BARBANCHU, Bohemian with a cocked hat, who was called into Vefour’s by some journalists who breakfasted there at the expense of Jerome Thuillier, in 1840, and invited by them to “sponge” off of this urbane man, which he did. The Middle Classes.
BARBANTI (The), a Corsican family who brought about the reconciliation of the Piombos and the Portas in 1800. The Vendetta.
BARBET, a dynasty of second-hand book-dealers in Paris under the Restoration and Louis Philippe. They were Normans. In 1821 and the years following, one of them ran a little shop on the quay des Grands-Augustins, and purchased Lousteau’s books. In 1836, a Barbet, partner in a book-shop with Metivier and Morand, owned a wretched house on the rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs and the boulevard du Mont-Parnasse, where dwelt the Baron Bourlac with his daughter and grandson. In 1840 the Barbets had become regular usurers dealing in credits with the firm of Cerizet and Company. The same year a Barbet occupied, in a house belonging to Jerome Thuillier, rue Saint-Dominique-d’Enfer (now rue Royal-Collard), a room on the first flight up and a shop on the ground floor. He was then a “publisher’s shark.” Barbet junior, a nephew of the foregoing, and editor in the alley des Panoramas, placed on the market at this time a brochure composed by Th. de la Peyrade but signed by Thuillier and having the title “Capital and Taxes.” A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Man of Business. The Seamy Side of History. The Middle Classes.
