ROUGET (Madame), born Descoings, wife of the preceding, daughter of rich and avaricous wool-dealers at Issoudun, elder sister of the grocer, Descoings, who married the widow of M. Bixiou and afterwards died with Andre Chenier, July 25, 1794, on the scaffold. As a young woman, although in very poor health, she was celebrated for her beauty. Not being gifted with a very sound intellect, when married it was thought that she was very badly treated by Doctor Rouget. Her husband believed that she was unfaithful to him for the sake of the sub-delegate, Lousteau. Madame Rouget, deprived of her dearly-beloved daughter, and finding her son lacking altogether in affection for her, declined rapidly and died early in 1799, unwept by her husband, who had counted correctly on her early death. A Bachelor’s Establishment.
ROUGET (Jean-Jacques), born at Issoudun in 1768, son of the preceding couple, brother of Madame Bridau, who was ten years his junior. Entirely lacking in intellect, he became wildly in love with Flore Brazier, whom he knew as a child in his father’s house. He made this girl his servant-mistress soon after the doctor’s death, and allowed her lover, Maxence Gilet, near her. He finally married her in 1823, being urged to do so by his nephew, Philippe Bridau, who soon took Rouget to Paris, and there arranged for the old man’s early death by starting him into dissipation. A Bachelor’s Establishment. After the death of J.-J. Rouget, the Baudrayes of Sancerre bought part of his furniture, and had it removed from Issoudun to Anzy, where they placed it in their castle, which had formerly belonged to the Cadignans. The Muse of the Department.
ROUGET (Madame Jean-Jacques). (See Bridau, Madame Philippe.)
ROUSSE (La), significant name given Madame Prelard. (See this last name.)
ROUSSEAU, driver of the public hack which carried the taxes collected at Caen. This conveyance was attacked and plundered by robbers in May, 1809, in the forest of Chesnay, near Mortagne, Orne. Rousseau, being looked upon as an accomplice of the robbers, was included in the prosecution which took place soon after; but he was acquitted. The Seamy Side of History.
ROUSTAN, Mameluke, in the service of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was with his master on the eve of the battle of Jena, October 13, 1806, when Laurence de Cinq-Cygne and M. de Chargeboeuf observed him holding the Emperor’s horse as Napoleon dismounted. This was just before these two approached the Emperor to ask pardon for the Hauteserres and the Simeuses, who had been condemned as accomplices in the abduction of Senator Malin. The Gondreville Mystery.
ROUVILLE (de), (See Leseigneur, Madame.)
ROUVRE (Marquis du), father of the Comtesse Clementine Laginska; threw away a considerable fortune, by means of which he had brought about his marriage with a Ronquerolles maiden. This fortune was partly eaten up by Florine, “one of the most charming actresses of Paris.” The Imaginary Mistress. M. du Rouvre was the brother-in-law of the Comte de Serizy, who, like him, had married a Ronquerolles. Having been a marquis under the old regime, M. du Rouvre was created count and made chamberlain by the Emperor. A Start in Life. In 1829, M. du Rouvre, then ruined, lived at Nemours. He had near this city a castle which he sold at great loss to Minoret-Levrault. Ursule Mirouet.
ROUVRE (Chevalier du), younger brother of the Marquis du Rouvre; an eccentric old bachelor, who became wealthy by dealing in houses and real estate, and is supposed to have left his fortune to his niece, the Comtesse Clementine Laginska. The Imaginary Mistress. Ursule Mirouet.
ROUZEAU, an Angouleme printer, predecessor and master of Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, in the eighteenth century. Lost Illusions.
RUBEMPRE (Lucien-Chardon de), born in 1800 at Angouleme; son of Chardon, a surgeon in the armies of the Republic who became an apothecary in that town, and of Mademoiselle de Rubempre, his wife, the descendant of a very noble family. He was a journalist, poet, romance writer, author of “Les Marguerites,” a book of sonnets, and of the “Archer de Charles IX.,” a historical romance. He shone for a time in the salon of Madame de Bargeton, born Marie-Louise-Anais de Negrepelisse, who became enamored of him, enticed him to Paris, and there deserted him, at the instigation of her cousin, Madame d’Espard. He met the members of the Cenacle on rue des Quatre-Vents, and became well acquainted with D’Arthez. Etienne Lousteau, who revealed to him the shameful truth concerning literary life, introduced him to the well-known publisher, Dauriat, and escorted him to an opening night at the Panorama-Dramatique theatre, where the poet saw the charming Coralie. She loved him at first sight, and he remained true to her until her death in 1822. Started by Lousteau into undertaking Liberal journalism, Lucien de Rubempre passed over suddenly to the Royalist side, founding the “Reveil,” an extremely partisan organ, with the hope of obtaining from the King the right to adopt the name of his mother. At this time he frequented the social world and thus brought to poverty his mistress. He was wounded in a duel by Michel Chrestien, whom he had made angry by an article in the “Reveil,” which had severely criticised a very excellent book by Daniel d’Arthez. Coralie having died, he departed for Angouleme on foot, with no resources except twenty francs that Berenice, the cousin and servant of her mistress, had received from chance lovers. He came near dying of exhaustion and sorrow, very near the city of his birth. He found there Madame de Bargeton, then the wife of Comte Sixte du Chatelet, prefect of Charente and a state councilor. Despite the warm reception given him, first by a laudatory article in a local newspaper, and next by a serenade from his young fellow-citizens, he left Angouleme hastily, desperate at having been responsible for the ruin of his brother-in-law, David Sechard, and contemplating suicide. While walking along he chanced upon Canon Carlos Herrera (Jacques Collin — Vautrin), who took him to Paris and became the guardian of his future career. In 1824, while passing an evening at the theatre Porte-Saint-Martin, Rubempre became acquainted with Esther Van Gobseck, called La Torpille, a courtesan. They were both seized at once with a violent love. A little later, at the last Opera ball of the winter of 1824, they would have compromised their security and pleasure if it had not been for the interference of Jacques Collin, called Vautrin, and if Lucien had not denied certain people the pleasure of satisfying their ill-willed curiosity, by agreeing to take supper at Lointier’s.* Lucien de Rubempre sought to become the son-in-law of the Grandlieus; he was welcomed by the Rabourdins; he became the protector of Savinien de Portenduere; he became the lover of Mmes. Maufrigneuse and Serizy, and the beloved of Lydie Peyrade. His life of ambition and of pleasure ended in the Conciergerie, where he was imprisoned unjustly, charged with robbing and murdering Esther, or with being an accomplice. He hanged himself while in prison, May 15, 1830. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. The Government Clerks. Ursule Mirouet. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life. Lucien de Rubempre lived in turn in Paris at the Hotel du Gaillard-Bois, rue de l’Echelle, in a room in the Quartier Latin, in the Hotel de Cluny on the street of the same name, in a lodging-house on rue Charlot, in another on rue de la Lune in company with Coralie, in a little apartment on rue Cassette with Jacques Collin, who followed him at least to one of his two houses on the Quai Malaquais and on rue Taitbout, the former home of Beaudenord and of Caroline de Bellefeuille. He is buried in Pere-Lachaise in a costly tomb which contains also the body of Esther Gobseck, and in which there is a place reserved for Jacques Collin. A series of articles, sharp and pointed, on Rubempre is entitled “Les Passants de Paris.”
* The Lointier restaurant, on rue Richelieu, opposite rue de la Bourse, was very popular about 1846 with the “four hundred.”
RUFFARD, called Arrachelaine, a robber and at the same time employed by Bibi-Lupin, chief of secret police in 1830; connected, with Godet, in the assassination of the Crottats, husband and wife, committed by Dannepont, called La Pouraille. Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life.
RUFFIN, born in 1815, the instructor of Francis Graslin after 1840. Ruffin was a professional teacher, and was possessed of a wonderful amount of information. His extreme tenderness “did not exclude from his nature the severity necessary on the part of one who wishes to govern a child.” He was of pleasing appearan
ce, known for his patience and piety. He was taken to Madame Graslin from his diocese by the Archbishop Dutheil, and had, for at least nine years, the direction of the young man who had been put in his charge. The Country Parson.
RUSTICOLI. (See La Palferine.)
S
SABATIER, police-agent; Corentin regretted not having had his assistance in the search with Peyrade, at Gondreville, in 1803. The Gondreville Mystery.
SABATIER (Madame), born in 1809. She formerly sold slippers in the trade gallery of the Palais de Justice, in Paris; widow of a man who killed himself by excessive drinking, became a trained nurse, and married a man whom she had nursed and had cured of an affection of the urinary ducts (“lurinary,” according to Madame Cibot), and by whom she had a fine child. She lived in rue Barre-du-Bec. Madame Bordevin, a relative, wife of a butcher of the rue Charlot, was god-mother of the child. Cousin Pons.
SAGREDO, a very wealthy Venetian senator, born in 1730, husband of Bianca Vendramini; was strangled, in 1760, by Facino Cane, whom he had found with Bianca, conversing on the subject of love, but in an entirely innocent way. Facino Cane.
SAGREDA (Bianca), wife of the preceding, born Vendramini, about 1742; in 1760, she undeservingly incurred the suspicion, in the eyes of her husband, of criminal relations with Facino Cane, and was unwilling to follow her platonic friend away from Venice after the murder of Sagredo. Facino Cane.
SAILLARD, a clerk of mediocre talent in the Department of Finance, during the reigns of Louis XVIII. and of Charles X.; formerly book-keeper at the Treasury, where he is believed to have succeeded the elder Poiret;* he was afterwards appointed chief cashier, and held that position a long while. Saillard married Mademoiselle Bidault, a daughter of a furniture merchant, whose establishment was under the pillars of the Paris market, and a niece of the bill-discounter on rue Greneta; he had by her a daughter, Elisabeth, who became by marriage Madame Isidore Baudoyer; owned an old mansion on Place Royale, where he lived together with the family of Isidore Baudoyer; he became mayor of his ward during the monarchy of July, and renewed then his acquaintance with his old comrades of the department, the Minards and the Thuilliers. The Government Clerks. The Middle Classes.
* The Compilers subsequently dispute this.
SAILLARD (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Bidault, in 1767; niece of the bill-discounter called Gigonnet; was the leading spirit of the household on Place Royale, and, above all, the counselor of her husband; she reared her daughter Elisabeth, who became Madame Baudoyer, very strictly. Cesar Birotteau. The Government Clerks.
SAIN, shared with Augustin the sceptre of miniature painting under the Empire. In 1809, before the Wagram campaign, he painted a miniature of Montcornet, then young and handsome; this painting passed from the hands of Madame Fortin, mistress of the future marshal, to the hands of their daughter, Madame Valerie Crevel (formerly Marneffe). Cousin Betty.
SAINT-DENIS (De), assumed name of the police-agent, Corentin.
SAINTE-BEAUVE (Charles-Augustin), born at Boulogne-sur-Mer in 1805; died in Paris in 1869; an academician and senator under the Second Empire. An illustrious Frenchman of letters whom Raoul Nathan imitated poorly enough before Beatrix de Rochefide in his account of the adventures of Charles-Edouard Rusticoli de la Palferine. A Prince of Bohemia.
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 assumed 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 Classes.
SAINT-FOUDRILLE (Madame de), wife of the preceding, received, about 1840, a very attentive visit from the Thuillier family. The Middle Classes.
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 assumed names of police-agent Peyrade.
SAINT-HEREEN (Comte de), husband of Moina d’Aiglemont, was heir of one of the most illustrious 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 passed 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 noble 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; grands
on 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 assess 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 identity, a Bohemian and cynic, who had come to borrow his own clothes that he had left in pawn. 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 circumvent 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.
Works of Honore De Balzac Page 1594
