Anatole Cerfberr

“ 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. ”

“ Have you dreamed at an age when one plucks in advance all the fruit from the tree of life— yet in blossom—I repeat, have you dreamed of being a Daniel d'Arthez, and of covering yourself with glory by the force of your achievements, in order to be requited, some day, for all the sufferings of your poverty-stricken youth, by the sublime Diane, Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, Princesse de Cadignan? ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed, somebody has said that the men of Balzac have appeared as much in literature as in life, especially since the death of the novelist. Balzac seems to have observed the society of his day less than he contributed to form a new one. Such and such personages are truer to life in 1860 than in 1835. When one considers a phenomenon of such range and intensity, it does not suffice to employ words like infatuation, fashion, mania. The attraction of an author becomes a psychological fact of prime importance and subject to analysis. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her husband's position and sundry physical charms which she was able to preserve till nearly her fortieth year enabled her to shine somewhat in society. With the Cruchots she often visited the Grandets, and, like the family of the President de Bonfons, she dreamed of mating Eugenie with her son Adolphe. The dissipated life of her husband at Paris and the combination of the Cruchots upset her plans. Nor was she able to do much for her daughter. However, deprived of much of her property and making the best of things, Mme. des Grassins continued unaided the management of the bank at Saumur. ”

“ In 1823 her reduced circumstances almost forced her to leave Paris for Issoudun, where, for a machiavellian purpose, Philippe Bridau would have made her the mistress of Jean-Jacques Rouget. The affair did not materialize. She went to Mme. Meynardie's house where she remained till about the end of 1823. One evening, while passing the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, she chanced to meet Lucien de Rubempre, and they loved each other at first sight. Their passion led into many vicissitudes. The poet and the ex-prostitute were rash enough to attend an Opera ball together in the winter of 1824. ”

“ DUDLEY (Lady Arabella) , wife of the preceding; member of an illustrious English family that was free of any /mesalliance/ from the time of the Conquest; exceedingly wealthy; one of those almost regal ladies; the idol of the highest French society during the Restoration. She did not live with her husband to whom she had left two sons who resembled Marsay, whose mistress she had been. In some way she succeeded in taking Felix de Vandenesse away from Mme. de Mortsauf, thus causing that virtuous woman keen anguish. She was born, so she said, in Lancashire, where women die of love. ”

“ DESROCHES, clerk of the Minister of the Interior under the Empire; friend of Bridau Senior, who had procured him the position. He was also on friendly terms with the chief's widow, at whose home he met, nearly every evening, his colleagues Du Bruel and Claparon. A dry, crusty man, who would never become sub-chief, despite his ability. He earned only one thousand eight hundred francs by running a department for stamped paper. Retired after the second return of Louis XVIII., he talked of entering as chief of bureau into an insurance company with a graduated salary. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The Marquis d'Esgrignon, though not having to emigrate, was still obliged to conceal himself. He participated in the Vendean struggle against the Republic, and was one of the members of the Committee Royal of Alencon. In 1800, at the age of fifty, in the hope of perpetuating his race, he married Mlle. de Nouastre, who died in child-birth, leaving the marquis an only son. M. d'Esgrignon always overlooked the escapades of this child, whose reputation was preserved by Chesnel; and he passed away shortly after the downfall of Charles X., saying: "The Gauls triumph." ”

“ Euphrasie pretended that in her early youth she had passed entire days and nights trying to support a lover who had forsaken her for a heritage. With the brunette, Aquilina, Euphrasie took part in a famous orgy, at the home of Frederic Taillefer, on rue Joubert, where were also Emile Blondet, Rastignac, Bixiou and Raphael de Valentin. Later she is seen at the Theatre-Italien, in company with the aged antiquarian, who had sold Raphael the celebrated "magic skin"; she was running through with the old merchant's treasures. ”

“ He saw clearly, while democracy was establishing itself with us on the ruins of the ancient regime, the novelty of the sentiments which these transfers from class to class were certain to produce. He fathomed every complication of heart and mind in the modern woman by an intuition of the laws which control her development. ”

“ BIANCHON (Horace) , a physician of Paris, celebrated during the times of Charles X. and Louis Philippe; an officer of the Legion of Honor, member of the Institute, professor of the Medical Faculty, physician- in-charge, at the same time, of a hospital and the Ecole Polytechnique. Born at Sancerre, Cher, about the end of the eighteenth century. He was "interne" at the Cochin Hospital in 1819, at which time he boarded at the Vauquer Pension where he knew Eugene de Rastignac, then studying law, and Goriot and Vautrin. [Father Goriot.] ”

“ In 1840, at the home of Marguerite Turquet, maintained by the notary Cardot, when Lousteau, Nathan and La Palferine were also present, he heard a story by Desroches. [A Man of Business.] About 1844, Bixiou helped in a high comedy relative to a Selim shawl sold by Fritot to Mistress Noswell. Bixiou himself had purchased, in a shop with M. du Ronceret, a shawl for Mme. Schontz. [Gaudissart II.] In 1845 Bixiou showed Paris and the "Unconscious Humorists" to a Pyrrenean named Gazonal, in company with Leon de Lora, a cousin of the countryman. ”

“ Hulot d'Ervy became ordonnance commissary during the Republic. The Empire made him a baron. During one of these periods he married Adeline Fischer, by whom he had two children. The succeeding governments, at least that of July, also favored Hector Hulot, and he became in turn, intendant- general, director of the War Department, councillor of state, and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. His private misbehavior dated from these periods and gathered force while he lived in Paris. ”

“ In 1815 before the battle of Waterloo, Frederic de Nucingen bought of him one hundred and fifty thousand bottles of champagne at thirty sous, and sold them at six francs; the allies drank them during the invasion—1817-19. [The Firm of Nucingen.] The beginning of the Restoration favored Guillaume. He was the husband of a charming woman, the natural daughter of a great lord, who died young after giving him a child. Was colonel of the National Guard, judge of the Court of Commerce, governor of one of the arrondissements of Paris and deputy. ”

“ About 1806 he married one of the daughters of a wealthy Hamburg banker, who gave him three children and died in 1814. Between 1818 and 1825 Giguet lost the two younger children, a son named Simon alone surviving. A Bonapartist and Liberal, the colonel was, during the Restoration, president of the committee at Arcis, where he came in touch with Grevin, Beauvisage and Varlet, notables of the same stamp. He abandoned active politics after his ideas triumphed, and, during the reign of Louis Philippe, he became a noted horticulturist, the creator of the famous Giguet rose. ”