Works of Honore De Balzac

by Honoré de Balzac

  CHAULIEU (Eleonore, Duchesse de), wife of the preceding. She was a friend of M. d’Aubrion and sought to influence him to bring about the marriage of Mlle. d’Aubrion with Charles Grandet. Eugenie Grandet. For a long time she was the mistress of the poet Canalis, several years her junior. She protected him, helping him on in the world, and in public life, but she was very jealous and kept him under strict surveillance. She still retained her hold of him at fifty years. Mme. de Chaulieu gave her husband the three children designated in the duc’s biography. Her hauteur and coquetry subdued most of her maternal sentiments. During the last year of the second Restoration, Eleonore de Chaulieu followed on the way to Normandy, not far from Rosny, a chase almost royal where her sentiments were fully occupied. Letters of Two Brides.

  CHAULIEU (Armande-Louise-Marie de), daughter of Duc and Duchesse de Chaulieu. (See Marie Gaston, Madame.)

  CHAUSSARD (The Brothers), inn-keepers at Louvigny, Orne; old game-keepers of the Troisville estate, implicated in a trial known as the “Chauffeurs of Mortagne” in 1809. Chaussard the elder was condemned to twenty years’ hard labor, was sent to the galleys, and later was pardoned by the Emperor. Chaussard junior was contumacious, and therefore received sentence of death. Later he was cast into the sea by M. de Boislaurier for having been traitorous to the Chouans. A third Chaussard, enticed into the ranks of the police by Contenson, was assassinated in a nocturnal affair. The Seamy Side of History.

  CHAVONCOURT (De), Besancon gentleman, highly thought of in the town, representing an old parliamentary family. A deputy under Charles X., one of the famous 221 who signed the address to the King on March 18, 1830. He was re-elected under Louis Philippe. Father of three children but possessing a rather slender income. The family of Chavoncourt was acquainted with the Wattevilles. Albert Savarus.

  CHAVONCOURT (Madame de), wife of the preceding and one of the beauties of Besancon. Born about 1794; mother of three children; managed capably the household with its slender resources. Albert Savarus.

  CHAVONCOURT (De), born in 1812. Son of M. and Mme. de Chavoncourt of Besancon. College-mate and chum of M. de Vauchelles. Albert Savarus.

  CHAVONCOURT (Victoire de), second child and elder daughter of M. and Mme. de Chavoncourt. Born between 1816 and 1817. M. de Vauchelles desired to wed her in 1834. Albert Savarus.

  CHAVONCOURT (Sidonie de), third and last child of M. and Mme. de Chavoncourt of Besancon. Born in 1818. Albert Savarus.

  CHAZELLE, clerk under the Minister of Finance, in Baudoyer’s bureau, in 1824. A benedict and wife-led, although wishing to appear his own master. He argued without ceasing upon subjects and through causes the idlest with Paulmier the bachelor. The one smoked, the other took snuff; this different way of taking tobacco was one of the endless themes between the two. The Government Clerks.

  CHELIUS, physician of Heidelberg with whom Halpersohn corresponded, during the reign of Louis Philippe. The Seamy Side of History.

  CHERVIN, a police-corporal at Montegnac near Limoges in 1829. The Country Parson.

  CHESNEL, or Choisnel, notary at Alencon, time of Louis XVIII. Born in 1753. Old attendant of the house of Gordes, also of the d’Esgrignon family whose property he had protected during the Revolution. A widower, childless, and possessed of a considerable fortune, he had an aristocratic clientele, notably that of Mme. de la Chanterie. On every hand he received that attention which his good points merited. M. du Bousquier held him in profound hatred, blaming him with the refusal which Mlle. d’Esgrignon had made of Du Bousquier’s proffered hand in marriage, and another check of the same nature which he experienced at first from Mlle. Cormon. By a dexterous move in 1824 Chesnel succeeded in rescuing Victurnien d’Esgrignon, though guilty, from the Court of Assizes. The old notary succumbed soon after this event. The Seamy Side of History. Jealousies of a Country Town.

  CHESSEL (De), owner of the chateau and estate of Frapesle near Sache in Touraine. Friend of the Vandenesses; he introduced their son Felix to his neighbors, the Mortsaufs. The son of a manufacturer named Durand who became very rich during the Revolution, but whose plebeian name he had entirely dropped; instead he adopted that of his wife, the only heiress of the Chessels, an old parliamentary family. M. de Chessel was director-general and twice deputy. He received the title of count under Louis XVIII. The Lily of the Valley.

  CHESSEL (Madame de), wife of the preceding. She made up elaborate toilettes. The Lily of the Valley. In 1824 she frequented Mme. Rabourdin’s Paris home. The Government Clerks.

  CHEVREL (Monsieur and Madame), founders of the house of the “Cat and Racket,” rue Saint-Denis, at the close of the eighteenth century. Father and mother of Mme. Guillaume, whose husband succeeded to the management of the firm. At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.

  CHEVREL, rich Parisian banker at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Probably brother and brother-in-law of the foregoing. He had a daughter who married Maitre Roguin. At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.

  CHIAVARI (Prince de), brother of the Duke of Vissembourg; son of Marechal Vernon. Beatrix.

  CHIFFREVILLE (Monsieur and Madame), ran a very prosperous drug-store and laboratory in Paris during the Restoration. Their partners were MM. Protez and Cochin. This firm had frequent business dealings with Cesar Birotteau’s “Queen of Roses”; it also supplied Balthazar Claes. Cesar Birotteau. The Quest of the Absolute.

  CHIGI (Prince), great lord of Rome in 1758. He boasted of having “made a soprano out of Zambinella” and disclosed the fact to Sarrasine that this creature was not a woman. Sarrasine.

  CHISSE (Madame de), great aunt of M. du Bruel; a grasping old Provincial at whose home the retired dancer Tullia, now Mme. du Bruel, was fortunate to pass a summer in a rather hypocritical religious penance. A Prince of Bohemia.

  CHOCARDELLE (Mademoiselle), known as Antonia; a Parisian courtesan during the reign of Louis Philippe; born in 1814. Maxime de Trailles spoke of her as a woman of wit; “She’s a pupil of mine, indeed,” said he. About 1834, she lived on rue Helder and for fifteen days was the mistress of M. de la Palferine. Beatrix. A Prince of Bohemia. For a time she operated a reading-room that M. de Trailles had established for her on rue Coquenard. Like Marguerite Turquet she had “well soaked the little d’Esgrignon.” A Man of Business. In 1838 she was present at the “house-warming” to Josepha Mirah on rue de la Ville-l’Eveque. Cousin Betty. In 1839 she accompanied her lover Maxime de Trailles to Arcis-sur-Aube to aid him in his official transactions relating to the legislative elections. The Member for Arcis.

  CHOIN (Mademoiselle), good Catholic who built a parsonage on some land at Blangy bought expressly by her in the eighteenth century; the property was acquired later by Rigou. The Peasantry.

  CHOLLET (Mother), janitress of a house on rue du Sentier occupied by Finot’s paper in 1821. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.

  CHRESTIEN (Michel), Federalist Republican; member of the “Cenacle” of rue des Quatre-Vents. In 1819 he and his friends were invited by the widow Bridau to her home to celebrate the return of her elder son Philippe from Texas. He posed as a Roman senator in a historic picture. The painter Joseph Bridau was a friend of his. A Bachelor’s Establishment. About 1822 Chrestien fought a duel with Lucien Chardon de Rubempre on account of Daniel d’Arthez. He was a great though unknown statesman. He was killed at Saint-Merri cloister on June 6, 1832, where he was defending ideas not his own. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. He became foolishly enamored of Diane de Maufrigneuse, but did not confess his love save by a letter addressed to her just before he went to his death at the barricade. He had saved the life of M. de Maufrigneuse in the Revolution of July, 1830, through love for the duchesse. The Secrets of a Princess.

  CHRISTEMIO, creole and foster-father of Paquita Valdes, whose protector and body-guard he constituted himself. The Marquis de San-Real caused his death for having abetted the intimacy between Paquita and Marsay. The Thirteen.

  CHRISTOPHE, native of Savoy; servant of Mme. Vauquer on rue Neuve-Saint-Genevieve, Paris, in 1819. He
alone was with Rastignac at the funeral of Goriot, accompanying the body as far as Pere-Lachaise in the priest’s carriage. Father Goriot.

  CIBOT, alias Galope-Chopine, also called Cibot the Great. A Chouan implicated in the Breton insurrection of 1799. Decapitated by his cousin Cibot, alias Pille-Miche, and by Marche-a-Terre for having unthinkingly betrayed the brigand position to the “Blues.” The Chouans.

  CIBOT (Barbette), wife of Cibot, alias Galope-Chopine. She went over to the “Blues” after her husband’s execution, and vowed through vengeance to devote her son, who was still a child, to the Republican cause. The Chouans.

  CIBOT (Jean), alias Pille-Miche; one of the Chouans of the Breton insurrection of 1799; cousin of Cibot, alias Galope-Chopine, and his murderer. Pille-Miche it was, also, who shot and killed Adjutant Gerard of the 72d demi-brigade at the Vivetiere. The Chouans. Signalized as the hardiest of the indirect allies of the brigands in the affair of the “Chauffeurs of Mortagne.” Tried and executed in 1809. The Seamy Side of History.

  CIBOT, born in 1786. From 1818 to 1845 he was tailor-janitor in a house in rue de Normandie, belonging to Claude-Joseph Pillerault, where dwelt Pons and Schmucke, the two musicians, time of Louis Philippe. Poisoned by the pawn-broker Remonencq, Cibot died at his post in April, 1845, on the same day of Sylvain Pons’ demise. Cousin Pons.

  CIBOT (Madame). (See Remonencq, Madame.)

  CICOGNARA, Roman Cardinal in 1758; protector of Zambinella. He caused the assassination of Sarrasine who otherwise would have slain Zambinella. Sarrasine.

  CINQ-CYGNE, the name of an illustrious family of Champagne, the younger branch of the house of Chargeboeuf. These two branches of the same stock had a common origin in the Duineffs of the Frankish people. The name of Cinq-Cygne arose from the defence of a castle made, in the absence of their father, by five (cinq) daughters all remarkably fair. On the blazon of the house of Cinq-Cygne is placed for device the response of the eldest of the five sisters when summoned to surrender: “We die singing!” The Gondreville Mystery.

  CINQ-CYGNE (Comtesse de), mother of Laurence de Cinq-Cygne. Widow at the time of the Revolution. She died in the height of a nervous fever induced by an attack on her chateau at Troyes by the populace in 1793. The Gondreville Mystery.

  CINQ-CYGNE (Marquis de), name of Adrien d’Hauteserre after his marriage with Laurence de Cinq-Cygne. (See Hauteserre, Adrien d’.)

  CINQ-CYGNE (Laurence, Comtesse, afterwards Marquise de), born in 1781. Left an orphan at the age of twelve, she lived, at the last of the eighteenth and the first of the nineteenth century, with her kinsman and tutor M. d’Hauteserre at Cinq-Cygne, Aube. She was loved by both her cousins, Paul-Marie and Marie-Paul de Simeuse, and also by the younger of her tutor’s two sons, Adrien d’Hauteserre, whom she married in 1813. Laurence de Cinq-Cygne struggled valiantly against a cunning and redoubtable police-agency, the soul of which was Corentin. The King of France approved the charter of the Count of Champagne, by virtue of which, in the family of Cinq-Cygne, a woman might “ennoble and succeed”; therefore the husband of Laurence took the name and the arms of his wife. Although an ardent Royalist she went to seek the Emperor as far as the battlefield of Jena, in 1806, to ask pardon for the two Simeuses and the two Hauteserres involved in a political trial and condemned to hard labor, despite their innocence. Her bold move succeeded. The Marquise de Cinq-Cygne gave her husband two children, Paul and Berthe. This family passed the winter season at Paris in a magnificent mansion on Faubourg du Roule. The Gondreville Mystery. In 1832 Mme. de Cinq-Cygne, at the instance of the Archbishop of Paris, consented to call on the Princesse de Cadignan who had reformed. The Secrets of a Princess. In 1836 Mme. de Cinq-Cygne was intimate with Mme. de la Chanterie. The Seamy Side of History. Under the Restoration, and principally during Charles X.’s reign, Mme. de Cinq-Cygne exercised a sort of sovereignty over the Department of the Aube which the Comte de Gondreville counterbalanced in a measure by his family connections and through the generosity of the department. Some time after the death of Louis XVIII. she brought about the election of Francois Michu as president of the Arcis Court. The Member for Arcis.

  CINQ-CYGNE (Jules de), only brother of Laurence de Cinq-Cygne. He emigrated at the outbreak of the Revolution and died for the Royalist cause at Mayence. The Gondreville Mystery.

  CINQ-CYGNE (Paul de), son of Laurence de Cinq-Cygne and of Adrien d’Hauteserre; he became marquis after his father’s death. The Gondreville Mystery.

  CINQ-CYGNE (Berthe de). (See Maufrigneuse, Mme. Georges de.)

  CIPREY of Provins, Seine-et-Marne; nephew of the maternal grandmother of Pierrette Lorrain. He formed one of the family council called together in 1828 to decide whether or not the young girl should remain underneath Denis Rogron’s roof. This council replaced Rogron with the notary Auffray and chose Ciprey for vice-guardian. Pierrette.

  CLAES-MOLINA (Balthazar), Comte de Nourho; born at Douai in 1761 and died in the same town in 1832; sprung from a famous family of Flemish weavers, allied to a very noble Spanish family, time of Philip II. In 1795 he married Josephine de Temninck of Brussels, and lived happily with her until 1809, at which time a Polish officer, Adam de Wierzchownia, seeking shelter at the Claes mansion, discussed with him the subject of chemical affinity. From that time on Balthazar, who formerly had worked in Lavoisier’s laboratory, buried himself exclusively in the “quest of the absolute.” He expended seven millions in experiments, leaving his wife to die of neglect. From 1820 to 1825* he was a tax-collector in Brittany — duties performed by his elder daughter who had secured the position for him in order to divert him from his barren labors. During this time she rehabilitated the family fortunes. Balthazar died, almost insane, crying “Eureka!” The Quest of the Absolute.

  * Given erroneously in original text as 1852. — J.W.M.

  CLAES (Josephine de Temninck, Madame), wife of Balthazar Claes; born at Brussels in 1770, died at Douai in 1816; a native Spaniard on her mother’s side; commonly called Pepita. She was small, crooked and lame, with heavy black hair and glowing eyes. She gave her husband four children: Marguerite, Felicie, Gabriel (or Gustave) and Jean-Balthazar. She was passionatley devoted to her husband, and died of grief over his neglect of her for the scientific experiments which never came to an end. The Quest of the Absolute. Mme. Claes counted among her kin the Evangelistas of Bordeau. A Marriage Settlement.

  CLAES (Marguerite), elder daughter of Balthazar Claes and Josephine de Temninck. (See Solis, Madame de.)

  CLAES (Felicie), second daughter of Balthazar Claes and of Josephine de Temninck; born in 1801. (See Pierquin, Madame.)

  CLAES (Gabriel or Gustave), third child of Balthazar Claes and of Josephine de Temninck; born about 1802. He attended the College of Douai, afterwards entering the Ecole Polytechnique, becoming an engineer of roads and bridges. In 1825 he married Mlle. Conyncks of Cambrai. The Quest of the Absolute.

  CLAES (Jean-Balthazar) last child of Balthazar Claes and Josephine de Temninck; born in the early part of the nineteenth century. The Quest of the Absolute.

  CLAGNY (J.-B. de), public prosecutor at Sancerre in 1836. A passionate admirer of Dinah de la Baudraye. He got transferred to Paris when she returned there, and became successively the substitute for the general prosecutor, attorney-general and finally attorney-general to the Court of Cassation. He watched over and protected the misguided woman, consenting to act as godfather to the child she had by Lousteau. The Muse of the Department.

  CLAGNY (Madame de), wife of the preceding. To use an expression of M. Gravier’s, she was “ugly enough to chase a young Cossack” in 1814. Mme. de Clagny associated with Mme. de la Baudraye. The Muse of the Department.

  CLAPARON, clerk for the Minister of the Interior under the Republic and Empire. Friend of Bridau, Sr., after whose death he continued his cordial relations with Mme. Bridau. He gave much attention to Philippe and Joseph on their mother’s account. Claparon died in 1820. A Bachelor’s Establishment.

  CLAPARON (Charles), son of the preceding; born
about 1790. Business man and banker (rue de Provence); at first a commercial traveler; an aide of F. du Tillet in transactions of somewhat shady nature. He was invited to the famous ball given by Cesar Birotteau in honor of Cesar’s nomination to the Legion of Honor and the release of French possessions. A Bachelor’s Establishment. Cesar Birotteau. In 1821, at the Bourse in Paris, he made a peculiar bargain with the cashier Castanier, who transferred to him, in exchange for his own individuality, the power which he had received from John Melmoth, the Englishman. Melmoth Reconciled. He was interested in the third liquidation of Nucingen in 1826, a settlement which made the fortune of the Alsatian banker whose “man of straw” he was for some time. The Firm of Nucingen. He was associated with Cerizet who deceived him in a deal about a house sold to Thuillier. Becoming bankrupt he embarked for America about 1840. He was probably condemned for contumacy on account of swindling. A Man of Business. The Middle Classes.

  CLAPART, employe to the prefecture of the Seine during the Restoration, at a salary of twelve hundred francs. Born about 1776. About 1803 he married a widow Husson, aged twenty-two. At that time he was employed in the Bureau of Finance, at a salary of eighteen hundred francs and a promise of more. But his known incapacity held him down to a secondary place. At the fall of the Empire he lost his position, obtaining his new one on the recommendation of the Comte de Serizy. Mme. Husson had by her first husband a child that was Clapart’s evil genius. In 1822 his family occupied an apartment renting for two hundred and fifty francs at number seven rue de la Cerisaie. There he saw much of the old pensioner Poiret. Clapart was killed by the Fieschi attack of July 28, 1835. A Start in Life.