[The Vendetta. The Gondreville Mystery. Colonel Chabert. Domestic Peace. The Country Doctor.]
MURET gave information about Jean-Joachim Goriot, his predecessor in the manufacture of "pates alimentaires." [Father Goriot.]
MUSSON, well-known hoaxer in the early part of the nineteenth century.
The policeman, Peyrade, imitated his craftiness in manner and disguise twenty years later, while acting as an English nabob keeping Suzanne Gaillard. [Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life.]
N
NANON, called Nanon the Great from her height (6 ft. 4 in.); born about 1769. First she tended cows on a farm that she was forced to leave after a fire; turned away on every side, because of her appearance, which was repulsive, she became, about 1791, at the age of twenty-two, a member of Felix Grandet"s household at Saumur, where she remained the rest of her life. She always showed grat.i.tude to her master for having taken her in. Brave, devoted and serious-minded, the only servant of the miser, she received as wages for very hard service only sixty francs a year. However, the acc.u.mulations of even so paltry an income allowed her, in 1819, to make a life investment of four thousand francs with Monsieur Cruchot. Nanon had also an annuity of twelve hundred francs from Madame de Bonfons, lived near the daughter of her former master, who was dead, and, about 1827, being almost sixty years of age, married Antoine Cornoiller. With her husband, she continued her work of devoted service to Eugenie de Bonfons. [Eugenie Grandet.]
NAPOLITAS, in 1830, secretary of Bibi-Lupin, chief of the secret police. Prison spy at the Conciergerie, he played the part of a son in a family accused of forgery, in order to observe closely Jacques Collin, who pretended to be Carlos Herrera. [Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life.]
NARZICOF (Princess), a Russian; had left to the merchant Fritot, according to his own account, as payment for supplies, the carriage in which Mistress Noswell, wrapped in the shawl called Selim, returned to the Hotel Lawson. [Gaudissart II.]
NATHAN (Raoul), son of a Jew p.a.w.n-broker, who died in bankruptcy a short while after marrying a Catholic, was for twenty-five years (1820-45) one of the best known writers in Paris. Raoul Nathan touched upon many branches: the journal, romance, poetry and the stage. In 1821, Dauriat published for him an imaginative work which Lucien de Rubempre alternately praised and criticized. The harsh criticism was meant for the publisher only. Nathan then put on the stage the "Alcade dans l"Embarras"--a comedie called an "imbroglio" and presented at the Panorama-Dramatique. He signed himself simply "Raoul"; he had as collaborator Cursy--M. du Bruel. The play was a distinct success.
About the same time, he supplanted Lousteau, lover of Florine, one of his leading actresses. About this time also Raoul was on terms of intimacy with Emile Blondet, who wrote him a letter dated from Aigues (Bourgogne) in which he described the Montcornets, and related their local difficulties. Raoul Nathan, a member of all the giddy and dissipated social circles, was with Giroudeau, Finot and Bixiou, a witness of Philip Bridau"s wedding to Madame J.-J. Rouget. He visited Florentine Cabirolle, when the Marests and Oscar Husson were there, and appeared often on the rue Saint-Georges, at the home of Esther van Gobseck, who was already much visited by Blondet, Bixiou and Lousteau.
Raoul, at this time, was much occupied with the press, and made a great parade of Royalism. The accession of Louis Philippe did not diminish the extended circle of his relations. The Marquise d"Espard received him. It was at her house that he heard evil reports of Diane de Cadignan, greatly to the dissatisfaction of Daniel d"Arthez, also present. Marie de Vandenesse, just married, noticed Nathan, who was handsome by reason of an artistic, uncouth ugliness, and elegant irregularity of features, and Raoul resolved to make the most of the situation. Although turned Republican, he took very readily to the idea of winning a lady of the aristocracy. The conquest of Madame the Comtesse de Vandenesse would have revenged him for the contempt shown him by Lady Dudley, but, fallen into the hands of usurers, fascinated with Florine, living in pitiable style in a pa.s.sage between the rue Ba.s.se-du-Rempart and the rue Neuve-des-Mathurins, and being often detained on the rue Feydau, in the offices of a paper he had founded, Raoul failed in his scheme in connection with the countess, whom Vandenesse even succeeded in restoring to his own affections, by very skilful play with Florine. During the first years of Louis Philippe"s reign, Nathan presented a flaming and brilliant drama, the two collaborators in which were Monsieur and Madame Marie Gaston, whose names were indicated on the hand-bills by stars only. In his younger days he had had a play of his put on at the Odeon, a romantic work after the style of "Pinto,"[*] at a time when the cla.s.sic was dominant, and the stage had been so greatly stirred up for three days that the play was prohibited. At another time he presented at the Theatre-Francais a great drama that fell "with all the honors of war, amid the roar of newspaper cannon." In the winter of 1837-38, Vanda de Mergi read a new romance of Nathan"s, ent.i.tled "La Perle de Dol." The memory of his social intrigues still haunted Nathan when he returned so reluctantly to M. de Clagny, who demanded it of him, a printed note, announcing the birth of Melchior de la Baudraye, as follows: "Madame la Baronne de la Baudraye is happily delivered of a child; M.
Etienne Lousteau has the honor of announcing it to you." Nathan sought the society of Madame de la Baudraye, who got from him, in the rue de Chartres-du-Roule, at the home of Beatrix de Rochefide, a certain story, to be arranged as a novel, related more or less after the style of Sainte-Beuve, concerning the Bohemians and their prince, Rusticoli de la Palferine. Raoul cultivated likewise the society of the Marquise de Rochefide, and, one evening of October, 1840, a proscenium box at the Varietes was the means of bringing together Ca.n.a.lis, Nathan and Beatrix. Received everywhere, perfectly at home in Marguerite Turquet"s boudoir, Raoul, as a member of a group composed of Bixiou, La Palferine and Maitre Cardot, heard Maitre Desroches tell how Cerizet made use of Antonia Chocardelle, to "get even" with Maxime de Trailles. Nathan afterwards married his misress, Florine, whose maiden name was really Sophie Grignault. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life. The Secrets of a Princess. A Daughter of Eve. Letters of Two Brides. The Seamy Side of History. The Muse of the Department. A Prince of Bohemia. A Man of Business, The Unconscious Humorists.]
[*] A drama by Nepomucene Lemercier; according to Labitte, "the first work of the renovated stage."
NATHAN,[*] (Madame Raoul), wife of the preceding, born Sophie Grignault, in 1805, in Bretagne. She was a perfect beauty, her foot alone left something to be desired. When very young she tried the double career of pleasure and the stage under the now famous name of Florine. The details of her early life are rather obscure: Madame Nathan, as supernumerary of the Gaite, had six lovers, before choosing Etienne Lousteau in that relation in 1821. She was at that time closely connected with Florentine Cabirolle, Claudine Chaffaroux, Coralie and Marie G.o.deschal. She had also a supporter in Matifat, the druggist, and lodged on the rue de Bondy, where, after a brilliant success at the Panorama-Dramatique, with Coralie and Bouffe, she received in maginficent style the diplomatists, Lucien de Rubempre, Camusot and others. Florine soon made an advantageous change in lover, home, theatre and protector; Nathan, whom she afterwards married, supplanted Lousteau about the middle of Louis Philippe"s reign. Her home was on rue Hauteville intead of rue de Bondy; and she had moved from the stage of the Panorama to that of the Gymnase. Having made an engagement at the theatre of the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle, she met there her old rival, Coralie, against whom she organized a cabal; she was distinguished for the brilliancy of her costumes, and brought into her train of followers successively the opulent Dudley, Desire Minoret, M. des Gra.s.sins, the banker of Saumur, and M. du Rouvre; she even ruined the last two. Florine"s fortune rose during the monarchy of July. Her a.s.sociation with Nathan subserved, moreover, their mutual interests; the poet won respect for the actress, who knew moreover how to make herself formidable by her spirit of intrigue and the tartness of her sallies of wit. Who did not know her mansion on the rue Pigalle? Indeed, Madame Nathan was an intimate acquaintance of Coralie, Esther la Torpille, Claudine du Bruel, Euphrasie, Aquilina, Madame Theodore Gaillard, and Marie G.o.deschal; entertained Emile Blondet, Andoche Finot, Etienne Lousteau, Felicien Vernou, Couture, Bixiou, Rastignac, Vignon, F. du Tillet, Nucingen, and Conti. Her apartments were embellished with the works of Bixiou, F. Souchet, Joseph Bridau, and H. Schinner. Madame de Vandenesse, being somewhat enamored of Nathan, would have destroyed these joys and this splendor, without heeding the devotion of the writer"s mistress, on the one hand, or the interference of Vandenesse on the other. Florine, having entirely won back Nathan, made no delay in marrying him. [The Muse of the Department. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.
Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life. The Government Clerks. A Bachelor"s Establishment. Ursule Mirouet. Eugenie Grandet. The Imaginary Mistress. A Prince of Bohemia. A Daughter of Eve. The Unconscious Humorists.]
[*] On the stage of the Boulevard du Temple Madame Nathan (Florine) henceforth made a salary of eight thousand francs.
NAVARREINS (Duc de), born about 1767, son-in-law of the Prince de Cadignan, through his first marriage; father of Antoinette de Langeais, kinsman of Madame d"Espard, and cousin of Valentin; accused of "haughtiness." He was patron of M. du Bruel--Cursy--on his entrance into the government service; had a lawsuit against the hospitals, which he entrusted to the care of Maitre Derville. He had Polydore de la Baudraye dignified to the appointment of collector, in consideration of his having released him from a debt contracted during the emigration; held a family council with the Grandlieus and Chaulieus when his daughter compromised her reputation by accepting an invitation to the house of Montriveau; was the patron of Victurnien d"Esgrignon; owned near Ville-aux-Fayes, in the sub-prefecture of Auxerrois, extensive estates, which were respected by Montcornet"s enemies, the Gaubertins, the Rigous, the Soudrys, the Fourchons, and the Tonsards; accompanied Madame d"Espard to the Opera ball, when Jacques Collin and Lucien de Rubempre mystified the marchioness; for five hundred thousand francs sold to the Graslins his estates and his Montegnac forest, near Limoges; was an acquaintance of Foedora through Valentin; was a visitor of the Princesse de Cadignan, after the death of their common father-in-law, of whom he had little to make boast, especially in matters of finance. The Duc de Navarrein"s mansion at Paris was on the rue du Bac. [A Bachelor"s Establishment. The Thirteen. Jealousies of a Country Town. The Peasantry. Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life. The Country Parson. The Magic Skin. The Gondreville Mystery. The Secrets of a Princess. Cousin Betty.]
NEGREPELISSE (De), a family dating back to the Crusades, already famous in the times of Saint-Louis, the name of the younger branch of the "renowned family" of Espard, borne during the restoration in Angoumois, by M. de Bargeton"s father-in-law, M. de Negrepelisse, an imposing looking old country gentleman, and one of the last representatives of the old French n.o.bility, mayor of Escarbes, peer of France, and commander of the Order of Saint-Louis. Negrepelisse survived by several years his son-in-law, whom he took under his roof when Anais de Bargeton went to Paris in the summer of 1821. [The Commission in Lunacy. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]
NEGREPELISSE (Comte Clement de), born in 1812; cousin of the preceding, who left him his t.i.tle. He was the elder of the two legitimate sons of the Marquis d"Espard. He studied at College Henri IV., and lived in Paris, under their father"s roof, on the rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve. The Comte de Negrepelisse seldom visited his mother, the Marquise d"Espard, who lived apart from her family in the Faubourg Saint-Honore. [The Commission in Lunacy.]
NEGRO (Marquis di), a Genoese n.o.ble, "Knight Hospitaller endowed with all known talents," was a visitor, in 1836, of the consul-general of France, at Genoa, when Maurice de l"Hostal gave before Damaso Pareto, Claude Vignon, Leon de Lora, and Felicite des Touches, a full account of the separation, the reconciliation, and, in short, the whole history of Octave de Bauvan and his wife. [Honorine.]
NEPOMUCENE, a foundling; servant-boy of Madame Vauthier, manager and door-keeper of the house on the Boulevard Montparna.s.se, which was occupied by the families of Bourlac and Mergi. Nepomucene usually wore a ragged blouse and, instead of shoes, gaiters or wooden clogs. To his work with Madame Vauthier was added daily work in the wood-yards of the vicinity, and, on Sundays and Mondays, during the summer, he worked also with the wine-merchants at the barrier. [The Seamy Side of History.]
NERAUD, a physician at Provins during the Restoration. He ruined his wife, who was the widow of a grocer named Auffray, and who had married him for love. He survived her. Being a man of doubtful character and a rival of Dr. Martener, Neraud attached himself to the party of Gouraud and Vinet, who represented Liberal ideas; he failed to uphold Pierrette Lorrain, the granddaughter of Auffray, against her guardians, the Rogrons. [Pierrette.]
NERAUD (Madame), wife of the preceding. Married first to Auffray, the grocer, who was sixty years old; she was only thirty-eight at the beginning of her widowhood; she married Dr. Neraud almost immediately after the death of her first husband. By her first marriage she had a daughter, who was the wife of Major Lorrain, and the mother of Pierrette. Madame Neraud died of grief, amid squalid surroundings, two years after her second marriage. The Rogrons, descended from old Auffray by his first marriage, had stripped her of almost all she had.
[Pierrette.]
NICOLAS. (See Montauran, Marquis de.)
NINETTE, born in 1832, "rat" at the Opera in Paris, was acquainted with Leon de Lora and J.-J. Bixiou, who called Gazonal"s attention to her in 1845. [The Unconscious Humorists.]
NOLLAND (Abbe), the promising pupil of Abbe Roze. Concealed during the Revolution at the house of M. de Negrepelisse, near Barbezieux, he had in charge the education of Marie-Louise-Anais (afterwards Madame de Bargeton), and taught her music, Italian and German. He died in 1802.
[Lost Illusions.]
NISERON, curate of Blangy (Bourgogne) before the Revolution; predecessor of Abbe Brossette in this curacy; uncle of Jean-Francois Niseron. He was led by a childish but innocent indiscretion on the part of his great-niece, as well as by the influence of Dom Rigou, to disinherit the Niserons in the interests of the Mesdemoiselles Pichard, house-keepers in his family. [The Peasantry.]
NISERON (Jean-Francois), beadle, sacristan, chorister, bell-ringer, and grave-digger of the parish of Blangy (Bourgogne), during the Restoration; nephew and only heir of Niseron the cure; born in 1751.
He was delighted at the Revolution, was the ideal type of the Republican, a sort of Michel Chrestien of the fields; treated with cold disdain the Pichard family, who took from him the inheritance, to which he alone had any right; lived a life of poverty and sequestration; was none the less respected; was of Montcornet"s party represented by Brossette; their opponent, Gregoire Rigou, felt for him both esteem and fear. Jean-Francois Niseron lost, one after another, his wife and his two children, and had by his side, in his old days, only Genevieve, natural daughter of his deceased son, Auguste. [The Peasantry.]
NISERON (Auguste), son of the preceding; soldier of the Republic and of the Empire; while an artilleryman in 1809, he seduced, at Zahara, a young Montenegrin, Zena Kropoli, who died, at Vincennes, early in the year 1810, leaving him an infant daughter. Thus he could not realize his purpose of marrying her. He himself was killed, before Montereau, during the year 1814, by the bursting of a sh.e.l.l. [The Peasantry.]
NISERON (Genevieve), natural daughter of the preceding and the Montenegrin woman, Zena Kropoli; born in 1810, and named Genevieve after a paternal aunt; an orphan from the age of four, she was reared in Bourgogne by her grandfather, Jean-Francois Niseron. She had her father"s beauty and her mother"s peculiarities. Her patronesses, Madame Montcornet and Madame de Michaud, bestowed upon her the surname Pechina, and, to guard her against Nicholas Tonsard"s attentions, placed her in a convent at Auxerre, where she might acquire skill in sewing and forget Justin Michaud, whom she loved unconsciously. [The Peasantry.]
NOEL, book-keeper for Jean-Jules Popinot of Paris, in 1828, at the time that the judge questioned the Marquis d"Espard, whose wife tried to deprive him of the right to manage his property. [The Commission in Lunacy.]
NOSWELL (Mistress), a rich and eccentric Englishwoman, who was in Paris at the Hotel Lawson about the middle of Louis Philippe"s reign; after much mental debate she bought of Fritot the shawl called Selim, which he said at first it was "impossible" for him to sell.
[Gaudissart II.]
NOUASTRE (Baron de), a refugee of the purest n.o.ble blood. A ruined man, he returned to Alencon in 1800, with his daughter, who was twenty-two years of age, and found a home with the Marquis d"Esgrignon, and died of grief two months later. Shortly afterwards the marquis married the orphan daughter. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]
NOURRISSON (Madame), was formerly, under the Empire, attached to the service of the Prince d"Ysembourg in Paris. The sight of the disorderly life of a "great lady" of the times decided Madame Nourrisson"s profession. She set up shop as a dealer in old clothes, and was also known as mistress of various houses of shame. Intimate relations with Jacqueline Collin, continued for more than twenty years, made this two-fold business profitable. The two matrons willingly exchanged, at times, names and business signs, resources and profits. It was in the old clothes shop, on the rue Neuve-Saint-Marc, that Frederic de Nucingen bargained for Esther van Gobseck. Towards the end of Charles X."s reign, one of Madame Nourrisson"s establishments, on rue Saint-Barbe, was managed by La Gonore; in the time of Louis Philippe another--a secret affair--existed at the so-called "Pate des Italiens"; Valerie Marneffe and Wenceslas Steinbock were once caught there together. Madame Nourrisson, first of the name, evidently continued to conduct her business on the rue Saint-Marc, since, in 1845, she narrated the minutiae of it to Madame Mahuchet before an audience composed of the well-known trio, Bixiou, Lora and Gazonal, and related to them her own history, disclosing to them the secrets of her own long past beginnings in life. [Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life. Cousin Betty. The Unconscious Humorists.]
NOUVION (Comte de), a n.o.ble refugee, who had returned in utter poverty; chevalier of the Order of Saint-Louis; lived in Paris in 1828, subsisting on the delicately disguised charity of his friend, the Marquis d"Espard, who made him superintendent of the publication, at No. 22 rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, of the "Picturesque History of China," and offered him a share in the possible profits of the work. [The Commission in Lunacy.]
NOVERRE, a celebrated dancer, born in Paris 1727; died in 1807; was the rather unreliable customer of Chevrel the draper, father-in-law and predecessor of Guillaume at the Cat and Racket. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.]
NUCINGEN (Baron Frederic de), born, probably at Strasbourg, about 1767. At that place he was formerly clerk to M. d"Aldrigger, an Alsatian banker. Of better judgment than his employer, he did not believe in the success of the Emperor in 1815 and speculated very skilfully on the battle of Waterloo. Nucingen now carried on business alone, and on his own account, in Paris and elsewhere; he thus prepared by degrees the famous house of the rue Saint-Lazare, and laid the foundation of a fortune, which, under Louis Philippe, reached almost eighteen million francs. At this period he married one of the two daughters of a rich vermicelli-maker, Mademoiselle Delphine Goriot, by whom he had a daughter, Augusta, eventually the wife of Eugene de Rastignac. From the first years of the Restoration may be dated the real brilliancy of his career, the result of a combination with the Kellers, Ferdinand du Tillet, and Eugene de Rastignac in the successful manipulation of schemes in connection with the Wortschin mines, followed by opportune a.s.signments and adroitly managed cases of bankruptcy. These various combinations ruined the Ragons, the Aiglemonts, the Aldriggers, and the Beaudenords. At this time, too, Nucingen, though clamorously declaring himself an out-and-out Bourbonist, turned a deaf ear to Cesar Birotteau"s appeals for credit, in spite of knowing of the latter"s consistent Royalism. There was a time in the baron"s life when he seemed to change his nature; it was when, after giving up his hired dancer, he madly entered upon an amour with Esther van Gobseck, alarmed his physician, Horace Bianchon, employed Corentin, Georges, Louchard, and Peyrade, and became especially the prey of Jacques Collin. After Esther"s suicide, in May, 1830, Nuncingen abandoned "Cythera," as Chardin des Lupeaulx had done before, and became again a man of figures, and was overwhelmed with favors: insignia, the peerage, and the cross of grand officer of the Legion of Honor. Nucingen, being respected and esteemed, in spite of his blunt ways and his German accent, was a patron of Beaudenord, and a frequent guest of Cointet, the minister; he went everywhere, and, at the mansion of Mademoiselle des Touches, heard Marsay give an account of some of his old love-affairs; witnessed, before Daniel d"Arthez, the calumniation of Diane de Cadignan by every one present in Madame d"Espard"s parlor; guided Maxime de Trailles between the hands, or, rather, the clutches of Claparon-Cerizet; accepted the invitation of Josepha Mirah to her reception on the rue Ville-l"Eveque. When Wenceslas Steinbock married Hortense Hulot, Nucingen and Cottin de Wissembourg were the bride"s witnesses. Furthermore, their father, Hector Hulot d"Ervy, borrowed of him more than a hundred thousand francs. The Baron de Nucingen acted as sponsor to Polydore de la Baudraye when he was admitted to the French peerage. As a friend of Ferdinand du Tillet, he was admitted on most intimate terms to the boudoir of Carabine, and he was seen there, one evening in 1845, along with Jenny Cadine, Gazonal, Bixiou, Leon de Lora, Ma.s.sol, Claude Vignon, Trailles, F. du Bruel, Vauvinet, Marguerite Turquet, and the Gaillards of the rue Menars. [The Firm of Nucingen. Father Goriot.
Pierrette. Cesar Birotteau. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life. Another Study of Woman. The Secrets of a Princess. A Man of Business. Cousin Betty. The Muse of the Department. The Unconscious Humorists.]
NUCINGEN (Baronne Delphine de), wife of the preceding, born in 1792, of fair complexion; the spoiled daughter of the opulent vermicelli-maker, Jean-Joachim Goriot; on the side of her mother, who died young, the granddaughter of a farmer. 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. Their liaison lasted more than fifteen years. An apartment on the rue d"Artois, fitted up by Jean-Joachim Goriot, sheltered their early love. Having entrusted to Rastignac a certain sum for play at the Palais-Royal, the baroness was able with the proceeds to free herself of a humiliating debt to Marsay. Meanwhile she lost her father. The Nucingen carriage, without an occupant, however, followed the hea.r.s.e. [Father Goriot.] Madame de Nucingen entertained a great deal on the rue Saint-Lazare. It was there that Auguste de Maulincour saw Clemence Desmarets, and Adolphe des Gra.s.sins met Charles Grandet. [The Thirteen. Eugenie Grandet.]
Cesar Birotteau, on coming to beg credit of Nucingen, as also did Rodolphe Castanier, immediately after his forgery, found themselves face to face with the baroness. [Cesar Birotteau. Melmoth Reconciled.]
At this period, Madame de Nucingen took the box at the Opera which Antoinette de Langeais had occupied, believing undoubtedly, said Madame d"Espard, that she would inherit her charms, wit and success.
[Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. The Commission in Lunacy.] According to Diane de Cadignan, Delphine had a horrible journey when she went to Naples by sea, of which she brought back a most painful reminder. The baroness showed a haughty and scornful indulgence when her husband became enamored of Esther van Gobseck.
[Scenes from a Courtesan"s Life.] Forgetting her origin she dreamed of seeing her daughter Augusta become d.u.c.h.esse d"Herouville; but the Herouvilles, knowing the muddy source of Nucingen"s millions, declined this alliance. [Modeste Mignon. The Firm of Nucingen.] Shortly after the year 1830, the baroness was invited to the house of Felicite des Touches, where she saw Marsay once more, and heard him give an account of an old love-affair. [Another Study of woman.] Delphine aided Marie de Vandenesse and Nathan to the extent of forty thousand francs during the checkered course of their intrigues. She remembered indeed having gone through similar experiences. [A Daughter of Eve.] About the middle of the monarchy of July, Madame de Nucingen, as mother-in-law of Eugene de Rastignac, visited Madame d"Espard and met Maxime de Trailles and Ferdinand du Tillet in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. [The Member for Arcis.]
NUEIL (De), proprietor of the domain of the Manervilles, which, doubtless, descended to the younger son, Gaston. [The Deserted Woman.]
NUEIL (Madame de), wife of the preceding, survived her husband, and her eldest son, became the dowager Comtesse de Nueil, and afterwards owned the domain of Manerville, to which she withdrew in retirement.
She was the type of the scheming mother, careful and correct, but worldly. She matched off Gaston, and was thereby involuntarily the cause of his death. [The Deserted Woman.]
NUEIL (De), eldest son of the preceding, died of consumption in the reign of Louis XVIII., leaving the t.i.tle of Comte de Nueil to his younger brother, Baron Gaston. [The Deserted Woman.]
NUEIL (Gaston de), son of the Nueils and brother of the preceding, born about 1799, of good extraction and with fortune suitable to his rank. He went, in 1822, to Bayeux, where he had family connections, in order to recuperate from the wearing fatigues of Parisian life; had an opportunity to force open the closed door of Claire de Beauseant, who had been living in retirement in that vicinity ever since the marriage of Miguel d"Ajuda-Pinto to Berthe de Rochefide; he fell in love with her, his love was reciprocated, and for nearly ten years he lived with her as her husband in Normandie and Switzerland. Albert Savarus, in his autobiographical novel, "L"Ambitieux par Amour," made a vague reference to them as living together on the sh.o.r.e of Lake Geneva.
After the Revolution of 1830, Gaston de Nueil, already rich from his Norman estates that afforded an income of eighteen thousand francs, married Mademoiselle Stephanie de la Rodiere. Wearying of the marriage tie, he wished to renew his former relations with Madame de Beauseant.
Exasperated by the haughty repulse at the hands of his former mistress, Nueil killed himself. [The Deserted Woman. Albert Savarus.]
NUEIL (Madame Gaston de), born Stephanie de la Rodiere, about 1812, a very insignificant character, married, at the beginning of Louis Philippe"s reign, Gaston de Nueil, to whom she brought an income of forty thousand francs a year. She was enceinte after the first month of her marriage. Having become Countess de Nueil, by succession, upon the death of her brother-in-law, and being deserted by Gaston, she continued to live in Normandie. Madame Gaston de Nueil survived her husband. [The Deserted Woman.]
O