Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z. Anatole Cerfberr
daughter of the Baron and Baroness d'Aldrigger, born at Strasbourg in 1801, at the time when the family was most wealthy. Dignified, slender, swarthy, sensuous, she was a good type of the woman "you have seen at Barcelona." Intelligent, haughty, whole-souled, sentimental and sympathetic, she was nevertheless smitten by the dry Ferdinand du Tillet, who sought her hand in marriage at one time, but forsook her when he learned of the bankruptcy of the Aldrigger family. The lawyer Desroches also considered asking the hand of Malvina, but he too gave up the idea. The young girl was counseled by Eugene de Rastignac, who took it upon himself to see that she got married. Nevertheless, she ended by being an old maid, withering day by day, giving piano lessons, living rather meagrely with her mother in a modest flat on the third floor, in the rue du Mont-Thabor. [The Firm of Nucingen.]
ALDRIGGER (Isaure d'), second daughter of the Baron and Baronne d'Aldrigger, married to Godefroid de Beaudenord (See that name.) [The Firm of Nucingen.]
ALINE, a young Auvergne chambermaid in the service of Madame Veronique Graslin, to whom she was devoted body and soul. She was probably the only one to whom was confided all the terrible secrets pertaining to the life of Madame Graslin. [The Country Parson.]
ALLEGRAIN* (Christophe-Gabriel), French sculptor, born in 1710. With Lauterbourg and Vien, at Rome, in 1758, he assisted his friend Sarrasine to abduct Zambinella, then a famous singer. The prima-donna was a eunuch. [Sarrasine.]
* To the sculptor Allegrain who died in 1795, the Louvre Museum is
indebted for a "Narcisse," a "Diana," and a "Venus entering the
Bath."
ALPHONSE, a friend of the ruined orphan, Charles Grandet, tarrying temporarily at Saumur. In 1819 he acquitted himself most creditably of a mission entrusted to him by that young man. He wound up Charles' business at Paris, paying all his debts by a single little sale. [Eugenie Grandet.]
AL-SARTCHILD, name of a German banking-house, where Gedeon Brunner was compelled to deposit the funds belonging to his son Frederic and inherited from his mother. [Cousin Pons.]
ALTHOR (Jacob), a Hambourg banker, who opened up a business at Havre in 1815. He had a son, whom in 1829 M. and Mme. Mignon desired for a son-in-law. [Modeste Mignon.]
ALTHOR (Francisque), son of Jacob Althor. Francisque was the dandy of Havre in 1829. He wished to marry Modeste Mignon but forsook her quickly enough when he found out that her family was bankrupt. Not long afterwards he married Mlle. Vilquin the elder. [Modeste Mignon.]
AMANDA, Parisian modiste at the time of Louis Philippe. Among her customers was Marguerite Turquet, known as Malaga, who was slow in paying bills. [A Man of Business.]
AMAURY (Madame), owner, in 1829, of a pavilion at Sauvic, near Ingouville, which Canalis leased when he went to Havre to see Mlle. Mignon [Modeste Mignon.]
AMBERMESNIL (Comtesse de l') went in 1819, when about thirty-six years old, to board with the widow, Mme. Vauquer, rue Nueve Sainte-Genevieve, now Tournefort, Paris. Mme. de l'Ambermesnil gave it out that she was awaiting the settlement of a pension which was due her on account of being the widow of a general killed "on the battlefield." Mme. Vauquer gave her every attention, confiding all her own affairs to her. The comtesse vanished at the end of six months, leaving a board bill unsettled. Mme. Vauquer sought her eagerly, but was never able to obtain a trace of this adventuress. [Father Goriot.]
AMEDEE, nickname bestowed on Felix de Vandenesse by Lady Dudley when she thought she saw a rival in Madame de Mortsauf. [The Lily of the Valley.]
ANCHISE (Pere), a surname given by La Palferine to a little Savoyard of ten years who worked for him without pay. "I have never seen such silliness coupled with such intelligence," the Prince of Bohemia said of this child; "he would go through fire for me, he understands everything, and yet he does not see that I cannot help him." [A Prince of Bohemia.]
ANGARD—At Paris, in 1840, the "professor" Angard was consulted, in connection with the Doctors Bianchon and Larabit, on account of Mme. Hector Hulot, who it was feared was losing her reason. [Cousin Betty.]
ANGELIQUE (Sister), nun of the Carmelite convent at Blois under Louis XVIII. Celebrated for her leanness. She was known by Renee de l'Estorade (Mme. de Maucombe) and Louise de Chaulieu (Mme. Marie Gaston), who went to school at the convent. [Letters of Two Brides.]
ANICETTE, chambermaid of the Princesse de Cadignan in 1839. The artful and pretty Champagne girl was sought by the sub-prefect of Arcis-sur-Aube, by Maxime de Trailles, and by Mme. Beauvisage, the mayor's wife, each trying to bribe and enlist her on the side of one of the various candidates for deputy. [The Member for Arcis.]
ANNETTE, Christian name of a young woman of the Parisian world, under the Restoration. She had been brought up at Ecouen, where she had received the practical counsels of Mme. Campan. Mistress of Charles Grandet before his father's death. Towards the close of 1819, a prey to suspicion, she must needs sacrifice her happiness for the time being, so she made a weary journey with her husband into Scotland. She made her lover effeminate and materialistic, advising with him about everything. He returned from the Indies in 1827, when she quickly brought about his engagement with Mlle. d'Aubrion. [Eugenie Grandet.]
ANNETTE, maid servant of Rigou at Blangy, Burgundy. She was nineteen years old, in 1823, and had held this place for more than three years, although Gregoire Rigou never kept servants for a longer period than this, however much he might and did favor them. Annette, sweet, blonde, delicate, a true masterpiece of dainty, piquant loveliness, worthy to wear a duchess' coronet, earned nevertheless only thirty francs a year. She kept company with Jean-Louis Tonsard without letting her master once suspect it; ambition had prompted this young woman to flatter her employer as a means of hoodwinking this lynx. [The Peasantry.]
ANSELME, Jesuit, living in rue des Postes (now rue Lhomond). Celebrated mathematician. Had some dealings with Felix Phellion, whom he tried to convert to his religious belief. This rather meagre information concerning him was furnished by a certain Madame Komorn. [The Middle Classes.]
ANTOINE, born in the village of Echelles, Savoy. In 1824 he had served longest as clerk in the Bureau of Finance, where he had secured positions, still more modest than his own, for a couple of his nephews, Laurent and Gabriel, both of whom were married to lace laundresses. Antoine meddled with every act of the administration. He elbowed, criticised, scolded and toadied to Clement Chardin des Lupeaulx and other office-holders. He doubtless lived with his nephews. [The Government Clerks.]
ANTOINE, old servant of the Marquise Beatrix de Rochefide, in 1840, on the rue de Chartes-du-Roule, near Monceau Park, Paris. [Beatrix.]
ANTONIA—see Chocardelle, Mlle.
AQUILINA, a Parisian courtesan of the time of the Restoration and Louis Philippe. She claimed to be a Piedmontese. Of her true name she was ignorant. She had appropriated this nom de guerre from a character in the well-known tragedy by Otway, "Venice Preserved," that she had chanced to read. At sixteen, pure and beautiful, at the time of her downfall, she had met Castanier, Nucingen's cashier, who resolved to save her from evil for his own gain, and live maritally with her in the rue Richter. Aquilina then took the name of Madame de la Garde. At the same time of her relations with Castanier, she had for a lover a certain Leon, a petty officer in a regiment of infantry, and none other than one of the sergeants of Rochelle to be executed on the Place de Greve in 1822. Before this execution, in the reign of Louis XVIII., she attended a performance of "Le Comedien d'Etampes," one evening at the Gymnase, when she laughed immoderately at the comical part played by Perlet. At the same time, Castanier, also present at this mirthful scene, but harassed by Melmoth, was experiencing the insufferable doom of a cruel hidden drama. [Melmoth Reconciled.] Her next appearance is at a famous orgy at the home of Frederic Taillefer, rue Joubert, in company with Emile Blondet, Rastignac, Bixiou and Raphael de Valentin. She was a magnificent girl of good figure, superb carriage, and striking though irregular features. Her glance and smile startled one. She always included some red trinket in her attire, in memory of her executed lover. [The Magic Skin.]
ARCOS (Comte d'), a Spanish grandee living in the Peninsula at the time of the expedition of Napoleon I. He would probably have married Maria-Pepita-Juana