Anatole Cerfberr

“ The pleasures of a gourmand replaced those of the lover; he likewise found some consolation for his isolation in his friendship with Schmucke. Pons suffered from his taste for high living; he grew old, like a parasitic plant, outside the circle of his family, only tolerated by his distant cousins, the Camusot de Marvilles, and their connections, Cardot, Berthier and Popinot. ”

“ 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." ”

“ He was unfaithful to her at one time, not being able to resist the unforeseen attractions of Clarina Tinti, a lodger in the Memmi palace, and unrivaled prima donna at the Fenice. Finally, conquering his timidity, and breaking with the "ideal," he rendered Massimilla Cataneo a mother, and married her when she became a widow. Varese lived in Paris under the reign of Louis Philippe, and, having been enriched by his marriage, one evening at the Champs-Elysees, aided certain destitute artists, the Gambaras, who were obliged to sing in the open air. ”

“ It is the skeleton of these individuals and of these families that is laid bare for your contemplation in these notes of Messieurs Cerfberr and Christophe. But this structure of facts, dependent one upon another by a logic equal to that of life itself, is the smallest effort of Balzac's genius. Does a birth-certificate, a marriage-contract or an inventory of wealth represent a person? Certainly not. There is still lacking, for a bone covering, the flesh, the blood, the muscles and the nerves. A glance from Balzac, and all these tabulated facts become imbued with life ”

“ Whether it is Birotteau's gout, or Mortsauf's nervousness, or Fraisier's skin trouble, or the secret reason for Rouget's subjugation by Flore, or Louis Lambert's catalepsy, he is as conversant with the case as though he were a physician; and he is as well informed, also, as a confessor concerning the spiritual mechanism which this animal machine supports. The slightest frailties of conscience are perceptible to him. From the portress Cibot to the Marquise d'Espard, not one of his women has an evil thought that he does not fathom. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In 1813 she was left a widow, with her daughter. She paid no thought to the value of money, never knowing how to resist a whim. So one morning in 1821 she was forced to call on the broker and expert, Elie Magus, to get an estimate on the value of her magnificent diamonds. She became wearied of life in the country, and therefore favored the marriage of her daughter with Paul de Manerville, in order that she might follow the young couple to Paris where she dreamed of appearing in grand style and of a further exercise of her power. ”

“ Gaubertin received at that time sundry lashes with a whip of which he said nothing, but for which he revenged himself. The old steward became, nevertheless, a person of importance. In 1820 he was mayor of Ville-aux-Fayes, and supplied one-third of the Paris wood. Being general agent of this rural industry, he managed the forests, lumber and guards. Gaubertin was related throughout a whole district, like a "boa-constrictor twisted around a gigantic tree"; the church, the magistracy, the municipality, the government—all did his bidding. Even the peasantry served his interests indirectly. ”

“ But Lisbeth Fischer's vindictive hatred, as well as his own weakness of character, caused him to fall beneath the fatal dominion of Valerie Marneffe, whose lover he became; with Stidmann, Vignon, and Massol, he witnessed that woman's second marriage. Steinbock returned to the conjugal domicile on the rue Louis-le-Grand, towards the latter part of Louis Philippe's reign. An exhausted artist, he confined himself to the barren role of critic ”

“ BERENICE, chambermaid and cousin of Coralie the actress of the Panorama and Gymnase Dramatique. A large Norman woman, as ugly as her mistress was pretty, but tender and sympathetic in direct proportion to her corpulence. She had been Coralie's childhood playmate and was absolutely bound up in her. In October, 1822, she gave Lucien de Rubempre, then entirely penniless, four five-franc pieces which she undoubtedly owed to the generosity of chance lovers met on the boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. This sum enabled the unfortunate poet to return to Angouleme. ”

“ The single bright ray across her life was an absolutely platonic love for her cousin Charles Grandet. But, once away from her, this young man was forgetful of her; and, on his return from the Indies in 1827, a rich man, he married the young daughter of a nobleman. Upon this occurrence, Eugenie Grandet, now an orphan, settled in full with the creditors of Charles' father, and then bestowed her hand upon the President Cruchot de Bonfons, who had paid her court for nine years. At the age of thirty-six she was left a widow without having ceased to be a virgin, following her expressed wish. ”

“ HEROUVILLE (Duc d') , son of the preceding; born in 1796, at Vienna, Austria, during the emigration, "fruit of the matrimonial autumn of the last governor of Normandy"; descendant of a Comte d'Herouville, a Norman free-lance who lived under Henri IV. and Louis XIII. He was Marquis de Saint-Sever, Duc de Nivron, Comte de Bayeux, Vicomte d'Essigny, grand equerry and peer of France, chevalier of the Order of the Spur and of the Golden Fleece, and grandee of Spain. ”

“ He passed three years at Bordeaux with his father, who had become overbearing and avaricious; when left an orphan, he inherited a large fortune, including Lanstrac in Gironde, and a house in Paris, rue de la Pepiniere. He spent six years in Europe as a diplomat, passing his vacations in Paris, where he was intimate with Henri de Marsay, and was a lover of Paquita Valdes. There he was subject to the trifling of Madame Charles de Vandenesse, then Emilie de Fontaine; also, perhaps, met Lucien de Rubempre. In the winter of 1821 he returned to Bordeaux, where he was a social leader. ”

“ On her part she was smitten with Maxence Gilet, whom she entertained in the house of the old bachelor at the latter's expense. But everything was changed by the arrival of Philippe Bridau at Issoudun. Gilet was killed in a duel, and Rouget married La Rabouilleuse in 1823. Left a widow soon after, she married the soldier. She died in Paris in 1828, abandoned by her husband, in the greatest distress, a prey to innumerable terrible complaints, the products of the dissolute life into which Philippe Bridau had designedly thrown her. ”

“ The generative facts which created them are the same which are always in operation about us. If many young men have taken as a model a Rastignac, for instance, it is because the passions by which this ambitious pauper was consumed are the same which our age of unbridled greed multiplies around disinherited youth. Add to this that Balzac was not content merely to display the fruitful sources of a modern intellect, but that he cast upon them the glare of the most ardent imagination the world has ever known. ”

“ TROMPE-LA-MORT, a sobriquet of Jacques Collin.
TROUBERT (Abbe Hyacinthe) , favorite priest of M. de Bourbonne; rose rapidly during the Restoration and Louis Philippe's reign, canon and vicar-general, in turn, of Tours, he was afterwards bishop of Troyes. His early career in Touraine showed him to be a deep, ambitious, and dangerous man, knowing how to remove from his path those that impeded his advance, and knowing how to conceal the full power of his animosity. ”

“ SCHINNER (Mademoiselle) , mother of Hippolyte Schinner, the painter, and daughter of an Alsatian farmer; being seduced by a coarse but wealthy man, she refused the money offered as compensation for refusing to legitimize their liaison, and consoled herself in the joys of maternity, the duties whereof she fulfilled with the most perfect devotion. At the time of her son's marriage she was living in Paris, and shared with him an apartment situated near the artist's studio, and not far from the Madeleine, on the rue des Champs-Elysees. ”

“ After being made a slave by savages he escaped from their hands by a bold ruse and returned to Paris, where he lived on rue de Seine near the Chamber of Peers. Despite his poverty and lack of ambition and influential friends, he was soon promoted to a general's position. His association with The Thirteen, a powerful and secret band of men, who counted among their members Ronquerolles, Marsay and Bourignard, probably brought him this unsolicited favor. This same freemasonry aided Montriveau in his desire to have revenge on Antoinette de Langeais for her delicate flirtation ”

“ GREVIN of Arcis, Aube, began life in the same way as his compatriot and intimate friend Malin de Gondreville. In 1787, he was second clerk to Maitre Bordin, attorney of the Chatelet, Paris. Returned to Champagne at the outbreak of the Revolution. There he received the successive protection of Danton, Bonaparte and Gondreville. By virtue of them he became an oracle to the Liberals, was enabled to marry Mlle. Varlet, the only daughter of the best physician of the city, to purchase a notary's practice, and to become wealthy. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Such intimate knowledge of the human heart had gradually saddened and wearied him; he sought relief for his ennui in debauchery; he paid attention to La Schontz, really a courtesan of superior stamp, and moulded her. [Beatrix.] Afterwards, he became ambitious, and was secretary to Cottin de Wissembourg, minister of war; this position brought him into contact with Valerie Marneffe, whom he secretly loved; he, Stidmann, Steinbock, and Massol, were witnesses of her marriage to Crevel, this being the second time she had been led to the altar. ”

“ In the latter period of the Empire she contracted, greatly to her taste, a marriage for money. Madame de Nucingen formerly had as her lover Henri de Marsay, who finally abandoned her most cruelly. Reduced, at the time of Louis XVIII., to the society of the Chaussee-d'Antin, she was ambitious to be admitted to the Faubourg Saint-Germain, a circle of which her elder sister, Madame de Restaud, was a member. Eugene de Rastignac opened to her the parlor of Madame de Beauseant, his cousin, rue de Greville, in 1819, and, at about the same time, became her lover. ”

“ Oratorian, member of the National Convention, councillor of state, minister of police under the Consulate and Empire, also chief of the department of the Interior and of the government of the Illyrian provinces, and president of the provisional government in 1815. In September, 1799, Colonel Hulot said: "Bernadotte, Carnot, even citizen Talleyrand—all have left us. In a word we have with us but a single good patriot, friend Fouche, who holds everything by means of the police. There's a man for you!" Fouche took especial care of Corentin who was perhaps his natural son. ”

“ 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.] ”

“ The dominant party of the Restoration accused Maxime de Trailles of being a Bonapartist, and rebuked him for his shameless corruption of life; but the citizen monarchy extended him a cordial welcome. Marsay was the chief promoter of the count's fortunes; he moulded him, and sent him on delicate political missions, which he managed with marvelous success. [The Secrets of a Princess.] And so the Comte de Trailles was widely known in social circles: as the guest of Josepha Mirah, by his presence he honored the house-warming in her new apartments on the rue de la Ville-l'Eveque. [Cousin Betty.] ”

“ Solonet paid the most devoted attentions of a lover to Madame Evangelista, but his love was not returned, and he sought her hand in vain. [A Marriage Settlement.]
SOLVET, a handsome youth, but addicted to gaming and other vices, loved by Caroline Crochard de Bellefeuille and preferred by her to Monsieur de Granville, her generous protector. Solvet made Mademoiselle Crochard very unhappy, ruined her, but was none the less adored by her. These facts were known to Bianchon, and related by him to the Comte de Granville, whom he met, one evening, in the reign of Louis Philippe, near rue Gaillon. ”

“ His younger brother, Guillaume, failed and killed himself, leaving in Felix's hands the settlement of his affairs, and sending to him his son Charles, who had hastened to Saumur, not knowing his father's ruin. Eugenie loved her cousin and combated her father's niggardliness, which looked after his own interests to the neglect of his brother. The struggle between Eugenie and her father broke Mme. Grandet's heart. The phases of the terrible duel were violent and numerous. Felix Grandet's passion resorted to stratagem and stubborn force. Death alone could settle with this domestic tyrant. ”