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REPERTORY OF THE COMEDIE HUMAINE, PART I, A K

H >> Honore de Balzac >> REPERTORY OF THE COMEDIE HUMAINE, PART I, A K




It is possible that to-day the phenomenon is becoming rarer, and that
Balzac, while no less admired, does not exercise the same fascinating
influence. The cause for this is that the great social forces which he
defined have almost ended their work. Other forces now shape the
oncoming generations and prepare them for further sensitive
influences. It is none the less a fact that, to penetrate the central
portions of the nineteenth century in France, one must read and reread
the /Comedie Humaine/. And we owe sincere thanks to Messieurs Cerfberr
and Christophe for this /Repertory/. Thanks to them, we shall the more
easily traverse the long galleries, painted and frescoed, of this
enormous palace,--a palace still unfinished, inasmuch as it lacks
those Scenes of Military Life whose titles awaken dreams within us:
/Forced Marches/; /The Battle of Austerlitz/; /After Dresden/.
Incontestably, Tolstoy's /War and Peace/ is an admirable book, but how
can we help regretting the loss of the painting of the Grand Army and
of our Great Emperor, by Balzac, our Napoleon of letters?

PAUL BOURGET.





REPERTORY OF THE COMEDIE HUMAINE



A

ABRAMKO, Polish Jew of gigantic strength, thoroughly devoted to the
broker, Elie Magus, whose porter he was, and whose daughter and
treasures he guarded with the aid of three fierce dogs, in 1844, in a
old house on the Minimes road hard by the Palais Royale, Paris.
Abramko had allowed himself to be compromised in the Polish
insurrection and Magus was interested in saving him. [Cousin Pons.]

ADELE, sturdy, good-hearted Briarde servant of Denis Rogron and his
sister, Sylvie, from 1824 to 1827 at Provins. Contrary to her
employers, she displayed much sympathy and pity for their youthful
cousin, Pierrette Lorrain. [Pierrette.]

ADELE, chambermaid of Madame du Val-Noble at the time when the latter
was maintained so magnificently by the stockbroker, Jacques Falleix,
who failed in 1929. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

ADOLPHE, slight, blonde young man employed at the shop of the shawl
merchant, Fritot, in the Bourse quarter, Paris, at the time of the
reign of Louis Philippe. [Gaudissart II.]

ADOLPHUS, head of the banking firm of Adolphus & Company of Manheim,
and father of the Baroness Wilhelmine d'Aldrigger. [The Firm of
Nucingen.]

AGATHE (Sister), nee Langeais, nun of the convent of Chelles, and,
with her sister Martha and the Abbe de Marolles, a refugee under the
Terror in a poor house of the Faubourg Saint-Martin, Paris. [An
Episode Under the Terror.]

AIGLEMONT (General, Marquis Victor d'), heir of the Marquis
d'Aiglemont and nephew of the dowager Comtesse de Listomere-Landon;
born in 1783. After having been the lover of the Marechale de
Carigliano, he married, in the latter part of 1813 (at which time he
was one of the youngest and most dashing colonels of the French
cavalry), Mlle. Julie de Chatillonest, his cousin, with whom he
resided successively at Touraine, Paris and Versailles.* He took part
in the great struggle of the Empire; but the Restoration freed him
from his oath to Napoleon, restored his titles, entrusted to him a
station in the Body Guard, which gave him the rank of general, and
later made him a peer of France. Gradually he forsook his wife, whom
he deceived on account of Madame de Serizy. In 1817 the Marquis
d'Aiglemont became the father of a daughter (See Helene d'Aiglemont)
who was his image physically and morally; his last three children came
into the world during a /liaison/ between the Marquise d'Aiglemont and
the brilliant diplomat, Charles de Vandenesse. In 1827 the general, as
well as his protege and cousin, Godefroid de Beaudenord, was hurt by
the fraudulent failure of the Baron de Nucingen. Moreover, he sank a
million in the Wortschin mines where he had been speculating with
hypothecated securities of his wife's. This completed his ruin. He
went to America, whence he returned, six years later, with a new
fortune. The Marquis d'Aiglemont died, overcome by his exertions, in
1833.** [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket. The Firm of Nucingen. A
Woman of Thirty.]

* It appears that the residence of the Marquis d'Aiglemont at
Versailles was located at number 57, on the present Avenue de
Paris; until recently it was occupied by one of the authors of
this work.

** Given erroneously in the original as 1835.

AIGLEMONT (Generale, Marquise Julie d'), wife of the preceding; born
in 1792. Her father, M. de Chatillonest, advised her against, but gave
her in marriage to her cousin, the attractive Colonel Victor
d'Aiglemont, in 1813. Quickly disillusioned and attacked from another
source by an "inflammation very often fatal, and which is spoken of by
women only in confidence," she sank into a profound melancholy. The
death of the Comtesse de Listomere-Landon, her aunt by marriage,
deprived her of valuable protection and advice. Shortly thereafter she
became a mother and found, in the realization of her new duties,
strength to resist the mutual attachment between herself and the young
and romantic Englishman, Lord Arthur Ormond Grenville, a student of
medicine who had nursed her and healed her bodily ailments, and who
died rather than compromise her. Heart-broken, the marquise withdrew
to the solitude of an old chateau situated between Moret and Montereau
in the midst of a neglected waste. She remained a recluse for almost a
year, given over utterly to her grief, refusing the consolations of
the Church offered her by the old cure of the village of Saint-Lange.
Then she re-entered society at Paris. There, at the age of about
thirty, she yielded to the genuine passion of the Marquis de
Vandenesse. A child, christened Charles, was born of this union, but
he perished at an early age under very tragic circumstances. Two other
children, Moina and Abel, were also the result of this love union.
They were favored by their mother above the two eldest children,
Helene and Gustave, the only ones really belonging to the Marquis
d'Aiglemont. Madame d'Aiglemont, when nearly fifty, a widow, and
having none of her children remaining alive save her daughter Moina,
sacrificed all her own fortune for a dower in order to marry the
latter to M. de Saint-Hereen, heir of one of the most famous families
of France. She then went to live with her son-in-law in a magnificent
mansion overlooking the Esplanade des Invalides. But her daughter gave
her slight return for her love. Ruffled one day by some remarks made
to her by Madame d'Aiglemont concerning the suspicious devotion of the
Marquis de Vandenesse, Moina went so far as to fling back at her
mother the remembrance of the latter's own guilty relations with the
young man's father. Terribly overcome by this attack, the poor woman,
who was a physical wreck, deaf and subject to heart disease, died in
1844. [A Woman of Thirty.]

AIGLEMONT (Helene d'), eldest daughter of the Marquis and Marquise
Victor d'Aiglemont; born in 1817. She and her brother Gustave were
neglected by her mother for Charles, Abel and Moina. On this account
Helene became jealous and defiant. When about eight years old, in a
paroxysm of ferocious hate, she pushed her brother Charles into the
Bievre, where he was drowned. This childish crime always passed for a
terrible accident. When a young woman--one Christmas night--Helene
eloped with a mysterious adventurer who was being tracked by justice
and who was, for the time being, in hiding at the home of the Marquis
Victor d'Aiglemont, at Versailles. Her despairing father sought her
vainly. He saw her no more till seven years later, and then only once,
when on his return from America to France. The ship on which he
returned was captured by pirates, whose captain, "The Parisian," the
veritable abductor of Helene, protected the marquis and his fortune.
The two lovers had four beautiful children and lived together in the
most perfect happiness, sharing the same perils. Helene refused to
follow her father. In 1835, some months after the death of her
husband, Madame d'Aiglemont, while taking the youthful Moina to a
Pyrenees watering-place, was asked to aid a poor sufferer. It was her
daughter, Helene, who had just escaped shipwreck, saving only one
child. Both presently succumbed before the eyes of Madame d'Aiglemont.
[A Woman of Thirty.]

AIGLEMONT (Gustave d'), second child of the Marquis and Marquise
Victor d'Aiglemont, and born under the Restoration. His first
appearance is while still a child, about 1827 or 1828, when returning
in company with his father and his sister Helene from the presentation
of a gloomy melodrama at the Gaite theatre. He was obliged to flee
hastily from a scene, which violently agitated Helene, because it
recalled the circumstances surrounding the death of his brother, some
two or three years earlier. Gustave d'Aiglemont is next found in the
drawing-room at Versailles, where the family is assembled, on the same
evening of the abduction of Helene. He died at an early age of
cholera, leaving a widow and children for whom the Dowager Marquise
d'Aiglemont showed little love. [A Woman of Thirty.]

AIGLEMONT (Charles d'), third child of the Marquis and the Marquise
d'Aiglemont, born at the time of the intimacy of Madame d'Aiglemont
with the Marquis de Vandenesse. He appears but a single time, one
spring morning about 1824 or 1825, then being four years old. He was
out walking with his sister Helene, his mother and the Marquis de
Vandenesse. In a sudden outburst of jealous hate, Helene pushed the
little Charles into the Bievre, where he was drowned. [A Woman of
Thirty.]

AIGLEMONT (Moina d'), fourth child and second daughter of the Marquis
and Marquise Victor d'Aiglemont. (See Comtesse de Saint-Hereen.) [A
Woman of Thirty.]

AIGLEMONT (Abel d'), fifth and last child of the Marquis and Marquise
Victor d'Aiglemont, born during the relations of his mother with M. de
Vandenesse. Moina and he were the favorites of Madame d'Aiglemont.
Killed in Africa before Constantine. [A Woman of Thirty.]

AJUDA-PINTO (Marquis Miguel d'), Portuguese belonging to a very old
and wealthy family, the oldest branch of which was connected with the
Bragance and the Grandlieu houses. In 1819 he was enrolled among the
most distinguished dandies who graced Parisian society. At this same
period he began to forsake Claire de Bourgogne, Vicomtesse de
Beauseant, with whom he had been intimate for three years. After
having caused her much uneasiness concerning his real intentions, he
returned her letters, on the intervention of Eugene de Rastignac, and
married Mlle. Berthe de Rochefide. [Father Goriot. Scenes from a
Courtesan's Life.] In 1832 he was present at one of Madame d'Espard's
receptions, where every one there joined in slandering the Princesse
de Cadignan before Daniel d'Arthez, then violently enamored of her.
[The Secrets of a Princess.] Towards 1840, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto,
then a widower, married again--this time Mlle. Josephine de Grandlieu,
third daughter of the last duke of this name. Shortly thereafter, the
marquis was accomplice in a plot hatched by the friends of the
Duchesse de Grandlieu and Madame du Guenic to rescue Calyste du Guenic
from the clutches of the Marquise de Rochefide. [Beatrix.]

AJUDA-PINTO (Marquise Berthe d'), nee Rochefide. Married to the
Marquis Miguel d'Ajuda-Pinto in 1820. Died about 1849. [Beatrix.]

AJUDA-PINTO (Marquise Josephine d'), daughter of the Duc and Duchesse
Ferdinand de Grandlieu; second wife of the Marquis Miguel d'Ajuda-
Pinto, her kinsman by marriage. Their marriage was celebrated about
1840. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

ALAIN (Frederic), born about 1767. He was clerk in the office of
Bordin, procureur of Chatelet. In 1798 he lent one hundred crowns in
gold to Monegod his life-long friend. This sum not being repaid, M.
Alain found himself almost insolvent, and was obliged to take an
insignificant position at the Mont-de-Piete. In addition to this he
kept the books of Cesar Birotteau, the well-known perfumer. Monegod
became wealthy in 1816, and he forced M. Alain to accept a hundred and
fifty thousand francs in payment of the loan of the hundred crowns.
The good man then devoted his unlooked-for fortune to philanthropies
in concert with Judge Popinot. Later, at the close of 1825, he became
one of the most active aides of Madame de la Chanterie and her
charitable association. It was M. Alain who introduced Godefroid into
the Brotherhood of the Consolation. [The Seamy Side of History.]

ALBERTINE, Madame de Bargeton's chambermaid, between the years 1821
and 1824. [Lost Illusions.]

ALBON (Marquis d'), court councillor and ministerial deputy under the
Restoration. Born in 1777. In September, 1819, he went hunting in the
edge of the forest of l'Isle-Adam with his friend Philippe de Sucy,
who suddenly fell senseless at the sight of a poor madwoman whom he
recognized as a former mistress, Stephanie de Vandieres. The Marquis
d'Albon, assisted by two passers by, M. and Mme. de Granville,
resuscitated M. de Sucy. Then the marquis returned, at his friend's
entreaty, to the home of Stephanie, where he learned from the uncle of
this unfortunate one the sad story of the love of his friend and
Madame de Vandieres. [Farewell.]

ALBRIZZI (Comtesse), a friend, in 1820, at Venice, of the celebrated
melomaniac, Capraja. [Massimilla Doni.]

ALDRIGGER (Jean-Baptiste, Baron d'), born in Alsace in 1764. In 1800 a
banker at Strasbourg, where he was at the apogee of a fortune made
during the Revolution, he wedded, partly through ambition, partly
through inclination, the heiress of the Adolphuses of Manheim. The
young daughter was idolized by every one in her family and naturally
inherited all their fortune after some ten years. Aldrigger, created
baron by the Emperor, was passionately devoted to the great man who
had bestowed upon him his title, and he ruined himself, between 1814
and 1815, by believing too deeply in "the sun of Austerlitz." At the
time of the invasion, the trustworthy Alsatian continued to pay on
demand and closed up his bank, thus meriting the remark of Nucingen,
his former head-clerk: "Honest, but stoobid." The Baron d'Aldrigger
went at once to Paris. There still remained to him an income of forty-
four thousand francs, reduced at his death, in 1823, by more than half
on account of the expenditures and carelessness of his wife. The
latter was left a widow with two daughters, Malvina and Isaure. [The
Firm of Nucingen.]

ALDRIGGER (Theodora-Marguerite-Wilhelmine, Baronne d'), nee Adolphus.
Daughter of the banker Adolphus of Manheim, greatly spoiled by her
parents. In 1800 she married the Strasbourg banker, Aldrigger, who
spoiled her as badly as they had done and as later did the two
daughters whom she had by her husband. She was superficial, incapable,
egotistic, coquettish and pretty. At forty years of age she still
preserved almost all her freshness and could be called "the little
Shepherdess of the Alps." In 1823, when the baron died, she came near
following him through her violent grief. The following morning at
breakfast she was served with small pease, of which she was very fond,
and these small pease averted the crisis. She resided in the rue
Joubert, Paris, where she held receptions until the marriage of her
younger daughter. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

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.]

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