FANNY, young girl of romantic temperament, fair and blonde, the only daughter of a banker of Paris. One evening at her father’s house she asked the Bavarian Hermann for a “dreadful German story,” and thus innocently led to the death of Frederic Taillefer who had in his youth committed a secret murder, now related in his hearing. The Red Inn.
FARIO, old Spanish prisoner of war at Issoudun during the Empire. After peace was declared he remained there making a small business venture in grains. He was of Grenada and had been a peasant. He was the butt of many scurvy tricks on the part of the “Knights of Idlesse,” and he avenged himself by stabbing their leader, Maxence Gilet. This attempted assassination was momentarily charged to Joseph Bridau. Fario finally obtained full satisfaction for his vindictive spirit by witnessing a duel where Gilet fell mortally wounded by the hand of Philippe Bridau. Gilet had previously become disconcerted by the presence of the grain-dealer on the field of battle. A Bachelor’s Establishment.
FARRABESCHE, ex-convict, now an estate-guard for Mme. Graslin, at Montegnac, time of Louis Philippe; of an old family of La Correze; born about 1791. He had had an elder brother killed at Montebello, in 1800 a captain at twenty-two, who by his surpassing heroism had saved the army and the Consul Bonaparte. There was, too, a second brother who fell at Austerlitz in 1805, a sergeant in the First regiment of the Guard. Farrabesche himself had got it into his head that he would never serve, and when summoned in 1811 he fled to the woods. There he affiliated more or less with the Chauffeurs and, accused of several assassinations, was sentenced to death for contumacy. At the instance of Abbe Bonnet he gave himself up, at the beginnng of the Restoration, and was sent to the bagne for ten years, returning in 1827. After 1830, re-established as a citizen, he married Catherine Curieux, by whom he had a child. Abbe Bonnet for one, and Mme. Graslin for another, proved themselves counselors and benefactors of Farrabesche. The Country Parson.
FARRABESCHE (Madame), born Catherine Curieux, about 1798; daughter of the tenants of Mme. Brezac, at Vizay, an important mart of La Correze; mistress of Farrabesche in the last years of the Empire. She bore him a son, at the age of seventeen, and was soon separated from her lover on his imprisonment in the galleys. She returned to Paris and hired out. In her last place she worked for an old lady whom she tended devotedly, but who died leaving her nothing. In 1833 she came back to the country; she was just out of a hospital, cured of a disease caused by fatigue, but still very feeble. Shortly after she married her former lover. Catherine Curieux was rather large, well-made, pale, gentle and refined by her visit to Paris, though she could neither read nor write. She had three married sisters, one at Aubusson, one at Limoges, and one at Saint-Leonard. The Country Parson.
FARRABESCHE (Benjamin), son of Farrabesche and Catherine Curieux; born in 1815; brought up by the relatives of his mother until 1827, then taken back by his father whom he dearly loved and whose energetic and rough nature he inherited. The Country Parson.
FAUCOMBE (Madame de), sister of Mme. de Touches and aunt of Felicite des Touches — Camille Maupin; — an inmate of the convent of Chelles, to whom Felicite was confided by her dying mother, in 1793. The nun took her niece to Faucombe, a considerable estate near Nantes belonging to the deceased mother, where she (the nun) died of fear in 1794. Beatrix.
FAUCOMBE (De), grand-uncle on the maternal side of Felicite des Touches. Born about 1734, died in 1814. He lived at Nantes, and in his old age had married a frivolous young woman, to whom he turned over the conduct of affairs. A passionate archaeologist he gave little attention to the education of his grand-niece who was left with him in 1794, after the death of Mme. de Faucombe, the aged nun of Chelles. Thus it happened that Felicite grew up by the side of the old man and young woman, without guidance, and left entirely to her own devices. Beatrix.
FAUSTINE, a young woman of Argentan who was executed in 1813 at Mortagne for having killed her child. Jealousies of a Country Town.
FELICIE, chambermaid of Mme. Diard at Bordeaux in 1823. The Maranas.
FELICITE, a stout, ruddy, cross-eyed girl, the servant of Mme. Vauthier who ran a lodging-house on the corner of Notre-Dame-des-Champs and Boulevard du Montparnasse, time of Louis Philippe. The Seamy Side of History.
FELIX, office-boy for Attorney-General Granville, in 1830. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
FENDANT, former head-clerk of the house of Vidal & Porchon; a partner with Cavalier. Both were book-sellers, publishers, and book-dealers, doing business on rue Serpente, Paris, about 1821. At this time they had dealings with Lucien Chardon de Rubempre. The house for social reasons was known as Fendant & Cavalier. Half-rascals, they passed for clever fellows. While Cavalier traveled, Fendant, the more wily of the two, managed the business. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.
FERDINAND, real name of Ferdinand du Tillet.
FERDINAND, fighting name of one of the principal figures in the Breton uprising of 1799. One of the companions of MM. du Guenic, de la Billardiere, de Fontaine and de Montauran. The Chouans. Beatrix.
FEREDIA (Count Bagos de), Spanish prisoner of war at the Vendome under the Empire; lover of Mme. de Merret. Surprised one evening by the unexpected return of her husband, he took refuge in a closet which was ordered walled up by M. de Merret. There he died heroically without even uttering a cry. La Grande Breteche.
FERET (Athanase), law-clerk of Maitre Bordin, procureur to the Chatelet in 1787. A Start in Life.
FERRAGUS XXIII. (See Bourignard.)
FERRARO (Count), Italian colonel whom Castanier had known during the Empire, and whose death in the Zembin swamps Castanier alone had witnessed. The latter therefore intended to assume Ferraro’s personality in Italy after forging certain letters of credit. Melmoth Reconciled.
FERRAUD (Comte), son of a returned councillor of the Parisian Parliament who had emigrated during the Terror, and who was ruined by these events. Born in 1781. During the Consulate he returned to France, at which time he declined certain offers made by Bonaparte. He remained ever true to the tenets of Louis XVIII. Of pleasing presence he won his way, and the Faubourg Saint-Germain regarded him as an ornament. About 1809 he married the widow of Colonel Chabert, who had an income of forty thousand francs. By her he had two children, a son and a daughter. He resided on rue de Varenne, having a pretty villa in the Montmorency Valley. During the Restoration he was made director-general in a ministry, and councillor of state. Colonel Chabert.
FERRAUD (Comtesse), born Rose Chapotel; wife of Comte Ferraud. During the Republic, or at the commencement of the Empire, she married her first husband, an officer named Hyacinthe and known as Chabert, who was left for dead on the battlefield of Eylau, in 1807. About 1818 he tried to reassert his marital rights. Colonel Chabert claimed to have taken Rose Chapotel out of a questionable place at Palais-Royal. During the Restoration this woman was a countess and one of the queens of Parisian society. When brought face to face with her first husband she feigned at first not to recognize him, then she displayed such a dislike for him that he abandoned his idea of legal restitution. Colonel Chabert. The Comtesse Ferraud was the last mistress of Louis XVIII., and remained in favor at the court of Charles X. She and Mesdames de Listomere, d’Espard, de Camps and de Nucingen were invited to the select receptions of the Minister of Finance, in 1824. The Government Clerks.
FERRAUD (Jules), son of Comte Ferraud and Rose Chapotel, the Comtesse Ferraud. While still a child, in 1817 or 1818, he was one day at his mother’s house when Colonel Chabert called. She wept and he asked hotly if the officer was responsible for the grief of the countess. The latter with her two children then played a maternal comedy which was successful with the ingenuous soldier. Colonel Chabert.
FESSARD, grocer at Saumur during the Restoration. Astonished one day by Nanon’s, the servant’s, purchase of a wax-candle, he asked if “the three magi were visiting them.” Eugenie Grandet.
FICHET (Mademoiselle), the richest heiress of Issoudun during the Restoration. Godet, junior, one of the “Knights of Idlesse”
paid court to her mother in the hope of obtaining, as a reward for his devotion, the hand of the young girl. A Bachelor’s Establishment.
FINOT (Andoche), managing-editor of journals and reviews, times of the Restoration and Louis Philippe. Son of a hatter of rue du Coq (now rue Marengo). Finot was abandoned by his father, a hard trader, and made a poor beginning. He wrote a bombastic announcement for Popinot’s “Cephalic Oil.” His first work was attending to announcements and personals in the papers. He was invited to the Birotteau ball. Finot was acquainted with Felix Gaudissart, who introduced him to little Anselme, as a great promoter. He was previously on the editorial staff of the “Courrier des Spectacles,” and he had a piece performed at the Gaite. Cesar Birotteau. In 1820 he ran a little theatrical paper whose office was located on rue du Sentier. He was nephew of Giroudeau, a captain of dragoons; was witness of the marriage of J.-J. Rouget. A Bachelor’s Establishment. in 1821 Finot’s paper was on rue Saint-Fiacre. Etienne Lousteau, Hector Merlin, Felicien Vernou, Nathan, F. du Bruel and Blondet all contributed to it. Then it was that Lucien de Rubempre made his reputation by a remarkable report of “L’Alcade dans l’embarras,” a three act drama performed at the Panorama-Dramatique. Finot then lived on rue Feydeau. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. In 1824 he was at the Opera ball in a group of dandies and litterateurs, which surrounded Lucien de Rubempre, who was flirting with Esther Gobseck. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life. In this year Finot was guest at an entertainment at the home of Rabourdin, the chief of bureau, when he allowed himself to be won over to that official’s cause by his friend Chardin des Lupeaulx, who had asked him to exert the voice of the press against Baudoyer, the rival of Rabourdin. The Government Clerks. In 1825 he was present at a breakfast given at the Rocher de Cancale, by Frederic Marest in celebration of his entrance to the law office of Desroches; he was also at the orgy which followed at the home of Florine. A Start in Life. In 1831 Gaudissart said that his friend Finot had an income of thirty thousand francs, that he would be councillor of state, and was booked for a peer of France. He aspired to end up as his “shareholder.” Gaudissart the Great. In 1836 Finot was dining with Blondet, his fellow-editor, and with Couture, a man about town, in a private room of a well-known restaurant, when he heard the story of the financial trickeries of Nucingen, wittily related by Bixiou. The Firm of Nucingen. Finot concealed “a brutal nature under a mild exterior,” and his “impertinent stupidity was flecked with wit as the bread of a laborer is flecked with garlic.” Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
FIRMIANI, a respectable quadragenarian who in 1813 married the lady who afterwards became Mme. Octave de Camps. He was unable, so it was said, to offer her more than his name and his fortune. He was formerly receiver-general in the department of Montenotte. He died in Greece in 1823. Madame Firmiani.
FIRMIANI (Madame). (See Camps, Mme. de.)
FISCHER, the name of three brothers, laborers in a village situated on the extreme frontiers of Lorraine, at the foot of the Vosges. They set out to join the army of the Rhine by reason of Republican conscriptions. The first, Pierre, father of Lisbeth — or “Cousin Betty” — was killed in 1815 in the Francstireurs. The second, Andre, father of Adeline who became the wife of Baron Hulot, died at Treves in 1820. The third, Johann, having committed some acts of peculation, at the instigation of his nephew Hulot, while a commissary contractor in Algiers, province of Oran, committed suicide in 1841. He was over seventy when he killed himself. Cousin Betty.
FISCHER (Adeline). (See Hulot, d’Ervy, Baronne Hector.)
FISCHER (Lisbeth), known as “Cousin Betty”; born in 1796; brought up a peasant. In her childhood she had to give way to her first cousin, the pretty Adeline, who was pampered by the whole family. In 1809 she was called to Paris by Adeline’s husband and placed as an apprentice with the well-known Pons Brothers, embroiderers to the Imperial Court. She became a skilled workwoman and was about to set up for herself when the Empire was overthrown. Lisbeth was a Republican, of restive temperament, capricious, independent and unaccountably savage. She habitually declined to wed. She refused in succession a clerk of the minister of war, a major, an army-contractor, a retired captain and a wealthy lace-maker. Baron Hulot nick-named her the “Nanny-Goat.” A resident of rue du Doyenne (which ended at the Louvre and was obliterated about 1855), where she worked for Rivet, a successor of Pons, she made the acquaintance of her neighbor, Wenceslas Steinbock, a Livonian exile, whom she saved from poverty and suicide, but whom she watched with a jealous strictness. Hortense Hulot sought out and succeeded in seeing the Pole; a wedding followed between the young people which caused Cousin Betty a deep resentment, cunningly concealed, but terrific in its effects. Through her Wenceslas was introduced to the irresistible Mme. Marneffe, and the happiness of a young household was quickly demolished. The same thing happened to Baron Hulot whose misconduct Lisbeth secretly abetted. Lisbeth died in 1844 of a pulmonary phthisis, principally caused by chagrin at seeing the Hulot family reunited. The relatives of the old maid never found out her evil actions. They surrounded her bedside, caring for her and lamenting the loss of “the angel of the family.” Mlle. Fischer died on rue Louis-le-Grand, Paris, after having dwelt in turn on rues du Doyenne, Vaneau, Plumet (now Oudinot) and du Montparnasse, where she managed the household of Marshal Hulot, through whom she dreamed of wearing the countess’ coronet, and for whom she donned mourning. Cousin Betty.
FITZ-WILLIAM (Miss Margaret), daughter of a rich and noble Irishman who was the maternal uncle of Calyste du Guenic; hence the first cousin of that young man. Mme. de Guenic, the mother, was desirous of mating her son with Miss Margaret. Beatrix.
FLAMET. (See la Billardiere, Flamet de.)
FLEURANT (Mother), ran a cafe at Croisic which Jacques Cambremer visited. A Seaside Tragedy.
FLEURIOT, grenadier of the Imperial Guard, of colossal size, to whom Philippe de Sucy entrusted Stephanie de Vandieres, during the passage of the Beresina in 1812. Unfortunately separated from Stephanie, the grenadier did not find her again until 1816. She had taken refuge in an inn of Strasbourg after escaping from an insane asylum. Both were then sheltered by Dr. Fanjat and taken to Auvergne, where Fleuriot soon died. Farewell.
FLEURY, retired infantry captain, comptroller of the Cirque-Olympique, and employed during the Restoration in Rabourdin’s bureau, of the minister of finance. He was attached to his chief, who had saved him from destitution. A subscriber, but a poor payer, to “Victories and Conquests.” A zealous Bonapartist and Liberal. His three great men were Napoleon, Bolivar and Beranger, all of whose ballads he knew by heart, and sang in a sweet, sonorous voice. He was swamped with debt. His skill at fencing and small-arms kept him from Bixiou’s jests. He was likewise much feared by Dutocq who flattered him basely. Fleury was discharged after the nomination of Baudoyer as chief of division in December, 1824. He did not take it to heart, saying that he had at his disposal a managing editorship in a journal. The Government Clerks. In 1840, still working for the above theatre, Fleury became manager of “L’Echo de la Bievre,” the paper owned by Thuillier. The Middle Classes.
FLICOTEAUX, rival of Rousseau the Aquatic. Historic, legendary and strictly honest restaurant-keeper in the Latin quarter between rue de la Harpe and rue des Gres — Cujas — enjoying the custom, in 1821-22, of Daniel d’Arthez, Etienne Lousteau and Lucien Chardon de Rubempre. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.
FLORENT, partner of Chanor; they were manufacturers and dealers in bronze, rue des Tournelles, Paris, time of Louis Philippe. Cousin Betty. Cousin Pons.
FLORENTNE. (See Cabirolle, Agathe-Florentine.)
FLORIMOND (Madame), dealer in linens, rue Vielle-du-Temple, Paris, 1844-45. Maintained by an “old fellow” who made her his heir, thanks to Fraisier, the man of business, whom she perhaps would have married through gratitude, had it not been for his physical condition. Cousin Pons.
FLORINE. (See Nathan, Mme. Raoul.)
FLORVILLE (La), actress at the Panorama-Dramatique in 1821. Among her contemporar
ies were Coralie, Florine, and Bouffe, or Vignol. On the first night performance of “The Alcade,” she played in a curtain-raiser, “Bertram.” For a few days she was the mistress of a Russian prince who took her to Saint-Mande, paying her manager a good sum for her absence from the theatre. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.
FOEDORA (Comtesse), born about 1805. Of Russian lower class origin and wonderfully beautiful. Espoused perhaps morganatically by a great lord of the land. Left a widow she reigned over Paris in 1827. Supposed to have an income of eighty thousand francs. She received in her drawing-rooms all the notables of the period, and there “appeared all the works of fiction that were not published anywhere else.” Raphael de Valentin was presented to the countess by Rastignac and fell desperately in love with her. But he left her house one day never to return, being definitely persuaded that she was “a woman without a heart.” Her memory was cruel, and her address enough to drive a diplomat to despair. Although the Russian ambassador did not receive her, she had entry into the set of Mme. de Serizy; visited with Mme. de Nucingen and Mme. de Restaud; received the Duchesse de Carigliano, the haughtiest of the Bonapartist clique. She had listened to many young dandies, and to the son of a peer of France, who had offered her their names in exchange for her fortune. The Magic Skin.
FONTAINE (Madame), fortune teller, Paris, rue Vielle-du-Temple, time of Louis Philippe. At one time a cook. Born in 1767. Earned a considerable amount of money, but previously had lost heavily in a lottery. After the suppression of this game of chance she saved up for the benefit of a nephew. In her divinations Mme. Fontaine made use of a giant toad named Astaroth, and of a black hen with bristling feathers, called Cleopatra or Bilouche. These two animals caught Gazonal’s eye in 1845, when in company with De Lora and Bixiou he visited the fortune-teller’s. The Southerner, however, asked only a five-franc divination, while in the same year Mme. Cibot, who came to consult her on an important matter, had to pay a hundred francs. According to Bixiou, “a third of the lorettes, a fourth of the statesmen and a half of the artists” consulted Mme. Fontaine. She was the Egeria of a minister, and also looked for “a tidy fortune,” which Bilouche had promised her. The Unconscious Humorists. Cousin Pons.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1567
