Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z. Anatole Cerfberr
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'),