Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 30

LISTOMERE (Baron de), nephew of the preceding, born in 1791; was in turn lieutenant and captain in the navy. During a leave of absence spent with his aunt at Tours he began to intervene in favor of the persecuted abbe, Francois Birotteau, but finally opposed him upon learning of the power of the Congregation, and that the priest's name figured in the Baronne de Listomere's will. [The Vicar of Tours.]

LISTOMERE (Comtesse de), old, lived in Saint-Germain suburbs of Paris, in 1839. At the Austrian emba.s.sy she became acquainted with Rastignac, Madame de Nucingen, Ferdinand du Tillet and Maxime de Trailles. [The Member for Arcis.]

LISTOMERE-LANDON (Marquise de), born in Provence, 1744; lady of the eighteenth century aristocracy, had been the friend of Duclos and Marechal de Richelieu. Later she lived in the city of Tours, where she tried to help by unbiased counsel her unsophisticated niece by marriage, the Marquise Victor d'Aiglemont. Gout and her happiness over the return of the Duc d'Angouleme caused Madame de Listomere's death in 1814. [A Woman of Thirty.]

LOLOTTE. (See Topinard, Madame.)

LONGUEVILLE (De), n.o.ble and ill.u.s.trious family, whose last scion, the Duc de Rostein-Limbourg, executed in 1793, belonged to the younger branch. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

LONGUEVILLE, deputy under Charles X., son of an attorney, without authority placed the particle _de_ before his name. M. Longueville was connected with the house of Palma, Werbrust & Co.; he was the father of Auguste, Maximilien and Clara; desired a peerage for himself and a minister's daughter for his elder son, who had an income of fifty thousand francs. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

LONGUEVILLE (Auguste), son of the preceding, born late in the eighteenth century, possessed an income of fifty thousand francs; married, probably a minister's daughter; was secretary of an emba.s.sy; met Madame Emilie de Vandenesse during a vacation which he was spending in Paris, and told her the secret of his family. Died young, while employed in the Russian emba.s.sy. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

LONGUEVILLE (Maximilien), one of Longueville's three children, sacrificed himself for his brother and sister; entered business, lived on rue du Sentier--then no longer called rue du Groschenet; was employed in a large linen establishment, situated near rue de la Paix; fell pa.s.sionately in love with Emilie de Fontaine, who became Madame Charles de Vandenesse. She ceased to reciprocate his pa.s.sion upon learning that he was merely a novelty clerk. However, M. Longueville, as a result of the early death of his father and of his brother, became a banker, a member of the n.o.bility, a peer, and finally the Vicomte "Guiraudin de Longueville." [The Ball at Sceaux.]

LONGUEVILLE (Clara), sister of the preceding; she was probably born during the Empire; was a very refined young woman of frail const.i.tution, but good complexion; lived in the time of the Restoration; was companion and protegee of her elder brother, Maximilien, future Vicomte Guiraudin, and was cordially received at the Planat de Baudry's pavilion, situated in the valley of Sceaux, where she was a good friend of the last unmarried heiress of Comte de Fontaine. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

LORA (Leon de), born in 1806, descendant of a n.o.ble family of Roussillon, of Spanish origin; penniless son of Comte Fernand Didas y Lora and Leonie de Lora, born Gazonal; younger brother of Juan de Lora, nephew of Mademoiselle Urraca y Lora; he left his native country at an early age. His family, with the exception of his mother, who died, remained at home long after his departure, but he never inquired concerning them. He went to Paris, where, having entered the artist, Schinner's, studio, under the name of Mistigris, he became celebrated for his animation and repartee. From 1820 he shone in this way, rarely leaving Joseph Bridau--a friend whom he accompanied to the Comte de Serizy's at Presles in the valley of Oise. Later Leon protected his very sympathetic but commonplace countryman, Pierre Gra.s.sou. In 1830 he became a celebrity. Arthez entrusted to him the decoration of a castle, and Leon de Lora forthwith showed himself to be a master. Some years later he took a tour through Italy with Felicite des Touches and Claude Vignon. Being present when the domestic troubles of the Bauvans were recounted, Lora was able to give a finished a.n.a.lysis of Honorine's character to M. de l'Hostal. Being a guest at all the social feasts and receptions he was in attendance at one of Mademoiselle Brisetout's gatherings on rue Chauchat. There he met Bixiou, Etienne Lousteau, Stidmann and Vernisset. He visited the Hulots frequently and their intimate friends. With the aid of Joseph Bridau he rescued W. Steinbock from Clichy, saw him marry Hortense, and was invited to the second marriage of Valerie Marneffe. He was then the greatest living painter of landscapes and sea-pieces, a prince of repartee and dissipation, and dependent on Bixiou. Fabien du Ronceret gave to him the ornamentation of an apartment on rue Blanche.

Wealthy, ill.u.s.trious, living on rue Berlin, the neighbor of Joseph Bridau and Schinner, member of the Inst.i.tute, officer of the Legion of Honor, Leon, a.s.sisted by Bixiou, received his cousin Palafox Gazonal, and pointed out to him many well-known people about town. [The Unconscious Humorists. A Bachelor's Establishment. A Start in Life.

Pierre Gra.s.sou. Honorine. Cousin Betty. Beatrix.]

LORA (Don Juan de), elder brother of the preceding, spent his whole life in Roussillon, his native country; in the presence of their cousin, Palafox Gazonal, denied that his younger brother, "le pet.i.t Leon," possessed great artistic ability. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

LORAUX (Abbe), born in 1752, of unattractive bearing, yet the very soul of tenderness. Confessor of the pupils of the Lycee Henry IV., and of Agathe Bridau; for twenty-five years vicar of Saint-Sulpice at Paris; in 1818 confessor of Cesar Birotteau; became in 1819 cure of the Blancs-Manteaux in Marais parish. He thus became a neighbor of Octave de Bauvan, in whose home he placed in 1824 M. de l'Hostal, his nephew and adopted son. Loraux, who was the means of restoring to Bauvan the Comtesse Honorine, received her confessions. He died in 1830, she being his nurse at the time. [A Start in Life. A Bachelor's Establishment. Cesar Birotteau. Honorine.]

LORRAIN, petty merchant of Pen-Hoel in the beginning of the nineteenth century; married and had a son, whose wife and child, Pierrette, he took care of after his son's death. Lorrain was completely ruined later, and took refuge in a home for the old and needy, confiding Pierrette, both of whose parents were now dead, to the care of some near relatives, the Rogrons of Provins. Lorrain's death took place previously to that of his wife. [Pierrette.]

LORRAIN (Madame), wife of the preceding, and grandmother of Pierrette; born about 1757; lived the simple life of her husband, to whom she bore some resemblance. A widow towards the end of the Restoration, she became comfortably situated after the return of Collinet of Nantes.

Upon going to Provins to recover her granddaughter, she found her dying; went into retirement in Paris, and died soon after, making Jacques Brigaut her heir. [Pierrette.]

LORRAIN, son of the preceding couple, Bretagne; captain in the Imperial Guard; major in the line; married the second daughter of a Provins grocer, Auffray, through whom he had Pierrette; died a poor man, on the battlefield of Montereau, February 18, 1814. [Pierrette.]

LORRAIN (Madame), wife of the preceding and mother of Pierrette; born Auffray in 1793; half sister to the mother of Sylvie and Denis Rogron of Provins. In 1814, a poor widow, still very young, she lived with the Lorrains of Pen-Hoel, a town in the Vendean Marais. It is said that she was consoled by the ex-major, Brigaut, of the Catholic army, and survived the unfortunate marriage of Madame Neraud, widow of Auffray, and maternal grandmother of Pierrette, only three years.

[Pierrette.]

LORRAIN (Pierrette), daughter of the preceding, born in the town of Pen-Hoel in 1813; lost her father when fourteen months old and her mother when six years old; lovable disposition, delicate and unaffected. After a happy childhood, spent with her excellent maternal grandparents and a playmate, Jacques Brigaut, she was sent to some first maternal cousins of Provins, the wealthy Rogrons, who treated her with pitiless severity. Pierrette died on Easter Tuesday, March, 1828, as the result of sickness brought on by the brutality of her cousin, Sylvie Rogron, who was extremely envious of her. A trial of her persecutors followed her death, and, despite the efforts of old Madame Lorrain, Jacques Brigaut, Martener, Desplein and Bianchon, her a.s.sailants escaped through the craftily exerted influence of Vinet.

[Pierrette.]

LOUCHARD, the craftiest bailiff of Paris; undertook the recovery of Esther van Gobseck, who had escaped from Frederic de Nucingen; did business with Maitre Fraisier. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Cousin Pons.]

LOUCHARD (Madame), wife of the preceding, did not live with him; acquainted with Madame Komorn de G.o.dollo and, in 1840, furnished her information about Theodose de la Peyrade. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

LOUDON (Prince de), general in the Vendean cavalry, lived at Le Mans during the Terror. He was brother of a Verneuil who was guillotined, was noted for "his boldness and the martyrdom of his punishment." [The Chouans. Modeste Mignon.]

LOUDON (Prince Gaspard de), born in 1791, third and only surviving son of the Duc de Verneuil's four children; fat and commonplace, having, very inappropriately, the same name as the celebrated Vendean cavalry general; became probably Desplein's son-in-law. He took part in 1829 in a great hunt given in Normandie, in company with the Herouvilles, the Cadignans and the Mignons. [Modeste Mignon.]

LOUIS XVIII. (Louis-Stanislas-Xavier), born at Versailles, November 16, 1754, died September 16, 1824, King of France. He was in political relations with Alphonse de Montauran, Malin de Gondreville, and some time before this, under the name of the Comte de Lille, with the Baronne de la Chanterie. He considered Peyrade an able officer and was his patron. King Louis XVIII., friend of the Comte de Fontaine, engaged Felix de Vandenesse as secretary. His last mistress was the Comtesse Ferraud. [The Chouans. The Seamy Side of History. The Gondreville Mystery. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. The Ball at Sceaux. The Lily of the Valley. Colonel Chabert. The Government Clerks.]

LOUISE, during the close of Louis Philippe's reign, was Madame W.

Steinbock's waiting-maid at Paris, rue Louis-le-Grand, and was courted by Hulot d'Ervy's cook, at the time when Agathe Piquetard, who was destined to become the second Baronne Hulot, was another servant.

(Cousin Betty.]

LOURDOIS, during the Empire wealthy master-painter of interiors; contractor with thirty thousand francs income, of Liberal views.

Charged an enormous sum for the famous decorations in Cesar Birotteau's apartments, where he was a guest with his wife and daughter at the grand ball of December 17, 1818. After the failure of the perfumer, a little later, he treated him somewhat slightingly. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket. Cesar Birotteau.]

LOUSTEAU, sub-delegate at Issoudun and afterwards the intimate friend of Doctor Rouget, at that time his enemy, because the doctor was possibly the father of Mademoiselle Agathe Rouget, then become Madame Bridau. Lousteau died in 1800. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

LOUSTEAU (Etienne), son of the preceding, born at Sancerre in 1799, nephew of Maximilienne Hochon, born Lousteau, school-mate of Doctor Bianchon. Urged on by his desire for a literary vocation, he entered Paris without money, in 1819, made a beginning with poetry, was the literary partner of Victor Ducange in a melodrama played at the Gaite in 1821, undertook the editing of a small paper devoted to the stage, of which Andoche Finot was proprietor. He had at that time two homes, one in the Quartier Latin, rue de la Harpe, above the Servel cafe, another on rue de Bondy, with Florine his mistress. Not having a better place, he became at times Flicoteaux's guest, in company with Daniel d'Arthez and especially Lucien de Rubempre, whom he trained, piloted, and introduced to Dauriat, in fact, whose first steps he aided, not without feeling regret later in life. For one thousand francs per month, Lousteau rid Philippe Bridau of his wife, Flore, placing her in a house of ill-fame. He was at the Opera, the evening of the masque ball of the year 1824, where Blondet, Bixiou, Rastignac, Jacques Collin, Chatelet and Madame d'Espard discovered Lucien de Rubempre with Esther Gobseck. Lousteau wrote criticisms, did work for various reviews, and for Raoul Nathan's gazette. He lived on rue des Martyrs, and was Madame Schontz's lover. He obtained by some intrigue a deputys.h.i.+p at Sancerre; carried on a long liaison with Dinah de la Baudraye; just escaped a marriage with Madame Berthier, then Felicie Cardot; was father of Madame de la Baudraye's children, and spoke as follows concerning the birth of the eldest: "Madame la Baronne de la Baudraye is happily delivered of a child; M. Etienne Lousteau has the honor of announcing it." During this liaison, Lousteau, for the sum of five hundred francs, gave to Fabien du Ronceret a discourse to be read at a horticultural exhibition, for which the latter was decorated. He attended a house-warming at Mademoiselle Brisetout's, rue Chauchat; asked Dinah and Nathan for the purpose or moral of the "Prince of Bohemia." Lousteau's manner of living underwent little change when Madame de la Baudraye left him. He heard Maitre Desroches recount one of Cerizet's adventures, saw Madame Marneffe marry Crevel, took charge of the "Echo de la Bievre," and undertook the management of a theatre with Ridal, the author of vaudevilles. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Bachelor's Establishment. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. A Daughter of Eve. Beatrix. The Muse of the Department. Cousin Betty. A Prince of Bohemia. A Man of Business. The Middle Cla.s.ses. The Unconscious Humorists.]

LUIGIA, young and beautiful Roman girl of the suburbs, wife of Benedetto, who claimed the right of selling her. She tried to kill herself at the same time she killed him, but did not succeed. Charles de Sallenauve--Dorlange--protected her, taking care of her when she became a widow, and made her his housekeeper in 1839. Luigia soon left her benefactor, the voice of slander having accused them in their mutually innocent relations. [The Member for Arcis.]

LUPEAULX (Clement Chardin des), officer and politician, born about 1785; left in good circ.u.mstances by his father; who was enn.o.bled by Louis XV., his coat-of-arms showing "a ferocious wolf of sable bearing a lamb in its jaws," with this motto: "En lupus in historia." A shrewd and ambitious man, ready for all enterprises, even the most compromising, Clement des Lupeaulx knew how to make himself of service to Louis XVIII. in several delicate undertakings. Many influential members of the aristocracy placed in his hands their difficult business and their lawsuits. He served thus as mediator between the Duc de Navarreins and Polydore Milaud de la Baudraye, and attained a kind of mightiness that Annette seemed to fear would be disastrous to Charles Grandet. He acc.u.mulated duties and ranks, was master of pet.i.tions in the Council of State, secretary-general to the minister of finance, colonel in the National Guard, government commissioner in a joint-stock company; also provided with an inspectors.h.i.+p in the king's house, he became Chevalier de Saint-Louis and officer of the Legion of Honor. An open follower of Voltaire, but an attendant at ma.s.s, at all times a Bertrand in pursuit of a Raton, egotistic and vain, a glutton and a libertine, this man of intellect, sought after in all social circles, a kind of minister's "household drudge," openly lived, until 1825, a life of pleasure and anxiety, striving for political success and love conquests. As mistresses he is known to have had Esther van Gobseck, Flavie Colleville; perhaps, even, the Marquise d'Espard. He was seen at the Opera ball in the winter of 1824, at which Lucien de Rubempre reappeared. The close of this year brought about considerable change in the Secretary-General's affairs.

Crippled by debt, and in the power of Gobseck, Bidault and Mitral, he was forced to give up one of the treasury departments to Isidore Baudoyer, despite his personal liking for Rabourdin. He gained as a result of this stroke a coronet and a deputys.h.i.+p. He had ambitions for a peerage, the t.i.tle of gentleman of the king's chamber, a members.h.i.+p in the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, and the commander's cross. [The Muse of the Department. Eugenie Grandet. A Bachelor's Establishment. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. The Government Clerks. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Ursule Mirouet.]

LUPEAULX (Des), nephew of the preceding, and, thanks to him, appointed sub-prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes, Bourgogne, in 1821, in the department presided over successively by Martial de la Roche-Hugon and Casteran.

As Gaubertin's prospective son-in-law, M. des Lupeaulx, espousing the cause of his fiancee's family, was instrumental in disgusting Montcornet, owner of Aigues, with his property. [The Peasantry.]

LUPIN, born in 1778, son of the last steward of the Soulanges in Bourgogne; in time he became manager of the domain, notary and deputy mayor of the city of Soulanges. Although married and a man of family, M. Lupin, still in excellent physical condition, was, in 1823, a brilliant figure in Madame Soudry's reception-room, where he was known for his tenor voice and his extreme gallantries--the latter characteristic being proved by two liaisons carried on with two middle-cla.s.s women, Madame Sarcus, wife of Sarcus the Rich, and Euphemie Plissoud. [The Peasantry.]

LUPIN (Madame), wife of the preceding, called "Bebelle;" only daughter of a salt-merchant enriched by the Revolution; had a platonic affection for the chief clerk, Bonnac. Madame Lupin was fat, awkward, of very ordinary appearance, and weak intellectually. On account of these characteristics Lupin and the Soudry adherents neglected her.

[The Peasantry.]

LUPIN (Amaury), only son of the preceding couple, perhaps the lover of Adeline Sarcus, who became Madame Adolphe Sibilet; was on the point of marrying one of Gaubertin's daughters, the same one, doubtless, that was wooed and won by M. des Lupeaulx. In the midst of this liaison and of these matrimonial designs, Amaury Lupin was sent to Paris in 1822 by his father to study the notary's profession with Maitre Crottat, where he had for a companion another clerk, Georges Marest, with whom he committed some indiscretions and went into debt. Amaury went with his friend to the Lion d'Argent, rue d'Enghien in the Saint-Denis section, when Marest took Pierrotin's carriage to Isle-Adam. On the way they met Oscar Husson, and made fun of him. The following year Amaury Lupin returned to Soulanges in Bourgogne. [The Peasantry. A Start in Life.]

M

MACHILLOT (Madame), kept in Paris, in 1838, in the Notre Dame-des Champs neighborhood, a modest restaurant, which was patronized by G.o.defroid on account of its nearness to Bourlac's house. [The Seamy Side of History.]

MAc.u.mER (Felipe Henarez, Baron de), Spanish descendant of the Moors, about whom much information has been furnished by Talleyrand; had a right to names and t.i.tles as follows: Henarez, Duc de Soria, Baron de Mac.u.mer. He never used all of them; for his entire youth was a succession of sacrifices, misfortunes and undue trials. Mac.u.mer, a leading Spanish revolutionist of 1823, saw fortune turn against him.

Ferdinand VII., once more enthroned, recognized him as const.i.tutional minister, but never forgave him for his a.s.sumption of power. Seeing his property confiscated and himself banished, he took refuge in Paris, where he took poor lodgings on rue Hillerin-Bertin and began to teach Spanish for a living, notwithstanding he was Baron de Sardaigne with large estates and a place at Sa.s.sari. Mac.u.mer also suffered many heart-aches. He vainly loved a woman who was beloved by his own brother. His brother's pa.s.sion being reciprocated, Mac.u.mer sacrificed himself for their happiness. Under the simple name of Henarez, Mac.u.mer was the instructor of Armande-Marie-Louise de Chaulieu, whom he did not woo in vain. He married her, March, 1825. At various times the baron occupied or owned Chantepleurs, a chateau Nivernais, a house on rue du Bac, and La Crampade, Louis de l'Estorate's residence in Provence. The foolish, annoying jealousy of Madame de Mac.u.mer embittered his life and was responsible for his physical break-down.

Idolized by his wife, in spite of his marked plainness, he died in 1829. [Letters of Two brides.]

MAc.u.mER (Baronne de). (See Gaston, Madame Marie.)

MADELEINE, first name of Madeleine Vinet, by which she was called while employed as a domestic. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Cousin Pons.]

MADOU (Angelique), woman of the ma.s.ses, fat but spry; although ignorant, very shrewd in her business of selling dried fruit. At the beginning of the Restoration she lived in Paris on rue Perrin-Ga.s.selin, where she fell prey to the usurer Bidault--Gigonnet.

Angelique Madou at first dealt harshly with Cesar Birotteau, when he was unable to pay his debts; but she congratulated him, later on, when, as a result of his revived fortunes, the perfumer settled every obligation. Angelique Madon had a little G.o.dchild, in whom she occasionally showed much interest. [Cesar Birotteau.]

MAGNAN (Prosper), of Beauvais, son of a widow, chief-surgeon's a.s.sistant; executed in 1799 at Andernach on the banks of the Rhine, being the innocent victim of circ.u.mstantial evidence, which condemned him for the double crime of robbery and murder--this crime having, in reality, been committed by his comrade, Jean-Frederic-Taillefer, who escaped punishment. [The Red Inn.]

MAGNAN (Madame), mother of the preceding, lived at Beauvais, where she died a short time after her son's death, and previous to the arrival of Hermann, who was bearing her a letter from Prosper. [The Red Inn.]

MAGUS (Elie), Flemish Jew, Dutch-Belgian descent, born in 1770. He lived now at Bordeaux, now at Paris; was a merchant of costly articles, such as pictures, diamonds and curiosities. By his influence Madame Luigi Porta, born Ginevra di Piombo, obtained from a print-seller a position as colorist. Madame Evangelista engaged him to estimate the value of her jewels. He bought a copy of Rubens from Joseph Bridau and some Flemish subjects from Pierre Gra.s.sou, selling them later to Vervelli as genuine Rembrandts or Teniers; he arranged for the marriage of the artist with the cork-maker's daughter. Very wealthy, and having retired from business in 1835, he left his house on the Boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle to occupy an old dwelling on Chaussee des Minimes, now called rue de Bearn. He took with him his treasures, his daughter, Noemi, and Abramko as a guard for his property. Eli Magus was still living in 1845, when he had just acquired, in a somewhat dishonorable manner, a number of superb paintings from Sylvain Pons' collection. [The Vendetta. A Marriage Settlement. A Bachelor's Establishment. Pierre Gra.s.sou. Cousin Pons.]

MAHOUDEAU (Madame), in 1840, in company with Madame Cardinal, her friend, created a disturbance during one of Bobino's performances at a small theatre near the Luxembourg, where Olympe Cardinal was playing.