Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z. Anatole Cerfberr
whence their daughter Rosalie could see every act and movement of Albert Savarus, a near neighbor. [Albert Savarus.]
BERTHIER (Alexandre), marshal of the Empire, born at Versailles in 1753, dying in 1815. He wrote, as Minister of War at the close of 1799, to Hulot, then in command of the Seventy-second demi-brigade, refusing to accept his resignation and giving him further orders. [The Chouans.] On the evening of the battle of Jena, October 13, 1806, he accompanied the Emperor and was present at the latter's interview with the Marquis de Chargeboeuf and Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, special envoys to France to implore pardon for the Simeuses, the Hauteserres, and Michu who had been condemned as abductors of Senator Malin de Gondreville. [The Gondreville Mystery.]
BERTHIER, Parisian notary, successor of Cardot, whose assistant head-clerk he had been and whose daughter Felicite (or Felicie) he married. In 1843 he was Mme. Marneffe's notary. At the same time he had in hand the affairs of Camusot de Marville; and Sylvain Pons often dined with him. Master Berthier drew up the marriage settlement of Wilhelm Schwab with Emilie Graff, and the copartnership articles between Fritz Brunner and Wilhelm Schwab. [Cousin Betty. Cousin Pons.]
BERTHIER (Madame), nee Felicie Cardot, wife of the preceding. She had been wronged by the chief-clerk in her father's office. This young man died suddenly, leaving her enceinte. She then espoused the second clerk, Berthier, in 1837, after having been on the point of accepting Lousteau. Berthier was cognizant of all the head-clerk's doings. In this affair both acted for a common interest. The marriage was measurably happy. Madame Berthier was so grateful to her husband that she made herself his slave. About the end of 1844 she welcomed very coldly Sylvain Pons, then in disgrace in the family circle. [The Muse of the Department. Cousin Pons.]
BERTON, tax-collector at Arcis-sur-Aube in 1839. [The Member for Arcis.]
BERTON (Mademoiselle), daughter of the tax-collector of Arcis-sur-Aube. A young, insignificant girl who acted the satellite to Cecile Beauvisage and Ernestine Mollot. [The Member for Arcis.]
BERTON (Doctor), physician of Paris. In 1836 he lived on rue d'Enfer (now rue Denfert-Rochereau). An assistant in the benevolent work of Mme. de la Chanterie, he visited the needy sick whom she pointed out. Among others he attended Vanda de Mergi, daughter of the Baron de Bourlac—M. Bernard. Doctor Berton was gruff and frigid. [The Seamy Side of History.]
BETHUNE (Prince de), the only man of fashion who knew "what a hat was"—to quote a saying of Vital the hatter, in 1845. [The Unconscious Humorists.]
BEUNIER & CO., the firm Bixiou inquired after in 1845, near Mme. Nourrisson's. [The Unconscious Humorists.]
BIANCHI. Italian. During the first Empire a captain in the sixth regiment of the French line, which was made up almost entirely of men of his nationality. Celebrated in his company for having bet that he would eat the heart of a Spanish sentinel, and winning that bet. Captain Bianchi was first to plant the French colors on the wall of Tarragone, Spain, in the attack of 1808. But a friar killed him. [The Maranas.]
BIANCHON (Doctor), a physician of Sancerre, father of Horace Bianchon, brother of Mme. Popinot, the wife of Judge Popinot. [The Commission in Lunacy.]
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.] Shortly thereafter, at Hotel Dieu, he became the favored pupil of the surgeon Desplein, whose last days he tended. [The Atheist's Mass.] Nephew of Judge Jean-Jules Popinot and relative of Anselme Popinot, he had dealings with the perfumer Cesar Birotteau, who acknowledged indebtedness to him for a prescription of his famous hazelnut oil, and who invited him to the grand ball which precipitated Birotteau's bankruptcy. [Cesar Birotteau. The Commission in Lunacy.] Member of the "Cenacle" in rue des Quatre-Vents, and on intimate terms with all the young fellows composing this clique, he was consequently enabled, to an extent, to bring Daniel d'Arthez to the notice of Rastignac, now Under-Secretary of State. He nursed Lucien de Rubempre who was wounded in a duel with Michel Chrestien in 1822; also Coralie, Lucien's mistress, and Mme. Bridau in their last illnesses. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Bachelor's Establishment. The Secrets of a Princess.] In 1824 the young Doctor Bianchon accompanied Desplein, who was called in to attend the dying Flamet de la Billardiere. [The Government Clerks.] In Provins in 1828, with the same Desplein and Dr. Martener, he gave the most assiduous attention to Pierrette Lorrain. [Pierrette.] In this same year of 1828 he had a momentary desire to become one of an expedition to Morea. He was then physician to Mme. de Listomere, whose misunderstanding with Rastignac he learned and afterwards related. [A Study of Woman.] Again in company with Desplein, in 1829, he was called in by Mme. de Nucingen with the object of studying the case of Baron de Nucingen, her husband, love-sick for Esther Gobseck. In 1830, still with his celebrated chief, he was cited by Corentin to express an opinion on the death of Peyrade and the lunacy of Lydie his daughter. Then, with Desplein and with Dr. Sinard, to attend Mme. de Serizy, who it was feared would go crazy over the suicide of Lucien de Rubempre. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Associated with Desplein, at this same time, he cared for the dying Honorine, wife of Comte de Bauvan [Honorine.], and examined the daughter of Baron de Bourlac—M. Bernard—who was suffering from a peculiar Polish malady, the plica. [The Seamy Side of History.] In 1831 Horace Bianchon was the friend and physician of Raphael de Valentin. [The Magic Skin.] In touch with the Comte de Granville in 1833, he attended the latter's mistress, Caroline Crochard. [A Second Home.] He also attended Mme. du Bruel, then mistress of La Palferine, who had injured herself by falling and striking her head against the sharp corner of a fireplace. [A Prince of Bohemia.] In 1835 he attended Mme. Marie Gaston—Louise de Chaulieu—though a hopeless case. [Letters of Two Brides.] In 1837 at Paris he accouched Mme. de la Baudraye who had been intimate with Lousteau; he was assisted by the celebrated accoucheur Duriau. [The Muse of the Department.] In 1838 he was Comte Laginski's physician. [The Imaginary Mistress.] In 1840 Horace Bianchon resided on rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve, in the house where his uncle, Judge Popinot, died, and he was asked to become one of the Municipal Council, in place of that upright magistrate. But he declined, declaring in favor of Thuillier. [The Middle Classes.] The physician of Baron Hulot, Crevel and Mme. Marneffe, he observed with seven of his colleagues, the terrible malady which carried off Valerie and her second husband in 1842. In 1843 he also visited Lisbeth Fisher in her last illness [Cousin Betty.] Finally, in 1844, Dr. Bianchon was consulted by Dr. Roubaud regarding Mme. Graslin at Montegnac. [The Country Parson.] Horace Bianchon was a brilliant and inspiring conversationalist. He gave to society the adventures known by the following titles: A Study of Woman; Another Study of Woman; La Grande Breteche.
BIBI-LUPIN, chief of secret police between 1819 and 1830; a former convict. In 1819 he personally arrested at Mme. Vauquer's boarding-house Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, his old galley-mate and personal enemy. Under the name of Gondureau, Bibi-Lupin had made overtures to Mlle. Michonneau, one of Mme. Vauquer's guests, and through her he had obtained the necessary proofs of the real identity of Vautrin who was then without the pale of the law, but who later, May, 1830, became his successor as chief of secret police. [Father Goriot. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
BIDAULT (Monsieur and Madame), brother and sister-in-law of Bidault, alias Gigonnet; father and mother of M. and Mme. Saillard, furniture-dealers under the Central Market pillars during the latter part of the eighteenth and perhaps the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. [The Government Clerks.]
BIDAULT, known as Gigonnet, born in 1755; originally an Auvergnat; uncle of Mme. Saillard on the paternal side. A paper-merchant at one time, retired from business since the year II of the Republic, he opened an account with a Dutchman called Sieur Werbrust, who was a friend of Gobseck. In business relations with the latter, he was one of the most formidable usurers in Paris, during the Empire, the Restoration and the first part of the July Government. He dwelt in rue Greneta. [The Government Clerks. Gobseck.] Luigi Porta, a ranking officer retired under Louis XVIII., sold all his back pay to Gigonnet. [The Vendetta.] Bidault was one of the syndicate that engineered the bankruptcy