Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 37

O'FLAHARTY (Major), maternal uncle of Raphael de Valentin, to whom he bequeathed ten millions upon his death in Calcutta, August, 1828. [The Magic Skin.]

OIGNARD, in 1806 was chief clerk to Maitre Bordin, a Parisian lawyer.

[A Start in Life.]

OLGA, daughter of the Topinards, born in 1840. She was not a legitimate child, as her parents were not married at the time when Schmucke saw her with them in 1846. He loved her for the beauty of her light Teutonic hair. [Cousin Pons.]

OLIVET, an Angouleme lawyer, succeeded by Pet.i.t-Claude. [Lost Illusions.]

OLIVIER was in the service of the policeman, Corentin and Peyrade, when they found the Hauteserres and the Simeuses with the Cinq-Cygne family in 1803. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

OLIVIER (Monsieur and Madame), first in the employ of Charles X. as outrider and laundress; had charge of three children, of whom the eldest became an under notary's clerk; were finally, under Louis Philippe, servants of the Marneffes and of Mademoiselle Fischer, to whom, through craftiness or grat.i.tude, they devoted themselves exclusively. [Cousin Betty.]

ORFANO (Duc d'), t.i.tle of Marechal Cottin.

ORGEMONT (D'), wealthy and avaricious banker, proprietor at Fougeres, bought the Abbaye de Juvigny's estate. He remained neutral during the Chouan insurrection of 1799 and came into contact with Coupiau, Galope-Chopine, and Mesdames du Gua-Saint-Cyr and de Montauran. [The Chouans.]

ORGEMONT (D'), brother of the preceding, a Breton priest who took the oath of allegiance. He died in 1795 and was buried in a secluded spot, discovered and preserved by M. d'Orgemont, the banker, as a place of hiding from the fury of the Vendeans. [The Chouans.]

ORIGET, famous Tours physician; known to the Mortsaufs, chatelains of Clochegourde. [The Lily of the Valley.]

ORSONVAL (Madame d'), frequently visited the Cruchot and Grandet families at Saumur. [Eugenie Grandet.]

OSSIAN, valet in the service of Mougin, the well-known hair-dresser on the Place de la Bourse, in 1845. Ossian's duty was to show the patrons out, and in this capacity he attended Bixiou, Lora and Gazonal. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

OTTOBONI, an Italian conspirator who hid in Paris. In 1831, on dining at the Giardinis on rue Froidmanteau, he became acquainted with the Gambaras. [Gambara.]

P

PACCARD, released convict, in Jacques Collin's clutches, well known as a thief and drunkard. He was Prudence Servien's lover, and both were employed by Esther van Gobseck at the same time, Paccard being a footman; lived with a carriage-maker on rue de Provence, in 1829.

After stealing seven hundred and fifty thousand francs, which had been left by Esther van Gobseck, he was obliged to give up seven hundred and thirty thousand of them. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PACCARD (Mademoiselle), sister of the preceding, in the power of Jacqueline Collin. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PALMA, Parisian banker of the Poissoniere suburbs; had, during the regime of the Restoration and of July, great fame as a financier. He was "private counsel for the Keller establishment." Birotteau, the perfumer, at the time of his financial troubles, vainly asked him for help. [The Firm of Nucingen. Cesar Birotteau.] With Werbrust as a partner he dealt in discounts as shrewdly as did Gobseck and Bidault, and thus was in a position to help Lucien de Rubempre. [Gobseck. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] He was also M.

Werbrust's a.s.sociate in the muslin, calico and oil-cloth establishment at No. 5 rue du Sentier, when Maximilien was so friendly with the Fontaines. [The Ball at Sceaux.]

PAMIERS (Vidame de), "oracle of Faubourg Saint-Germain at the time of the Restoration," a member of the family council dealing with Antoinette de Langeais, who was accused of compromising herself with Montriveau. Past-commander of the Order of Malta, prominent in both the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, old and confidential friend of the Baronne de Maulincour. Pamiers reared the young Baron Auguste de Maulincour, defending him with all his power against Bourignard's hatred. [The Thirteen.] As a former intimate friend of the Marquis d'Esgrignon, the vidame introduced the Vicomte d'Esgrignon--Victurnien --to Diane de Maufrigneuse. An intimate friends.h.i.+p between the young man and the future Princess de Cadignan was the result. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

PANNIER, merchant and banker after 1794; treasurer of the "brigands"; connected with the uprising of the Chauffeurs of Mortagne in 1809.

Having been condemned to twenty years of hard labor, Pannier was branded and placed in the galleys. Appointed lieutenant-general under Louis XVIII., he governed a royal castle. He died without children.

[The Seamy Side of History.]

PARADIS, born in 1830; Maxime de Trailles' servant-boy or "tiger"; quick and bold; made a tour, during the election period in the spring of 1839, through the Arcis-sur-Aube district, with his master, meeting Goulard, the sub-prefect, Poupart, the tavern-keeper, and the Maufrigneuses and Mollots of Cinq-Cygne. [The Member for Arcis.]

PARQUOI (Francois), one of the Chouans, for whom Abbe Gudin held a funeral ma.s.s in the heart of the forest, not far from Fougeres, in the autumn of 1799. Francois Parquoi died, as did Nicolas Laferte, Joseph Brouet and Sulpice Coupiau, of injuries received at the battle of La Pelerine and at the siege of Fougeres. [The Chouans.]

PASCAL, porter of the Thuilliers in the Place de la Madeleine house; acted also as beadle at La Madeleine church. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

PASCAL (Abbe), chaplain at Limoges prison in 1829; gentle old man. He tried vainly to obtain a confession from Jean-Francois Tascheron, who had been imprisoned for robbery followed by murder. [The Country Parson.]

PASTELOT, priest in 1845, in the Saint-Francois church in the Marais, on the street now called rue Charlot; watched over the dead body of Sylvain Pons. [Cousin Pons.]

PASTUREAU (Jean Francois), in 1829, owner of an estate in Isere, the value of which was said to have been impaired by the pa.s.sing by of Doctor Bena.s.sis' patients. [The Country Doctor.]

PATRAT (Maitre), notary at Fougeres in 1799, an acquaintance of D'Orgemont, the banker, and introduced to Marie de Verneuil by the old miser. [The Chouans.]

PATRIOTE, a monkey, which Marie de Verneuil, its owner, had taught to counterfeit Danton. The craftiness of this animal reminded Marie of Corentin. [The Chouans.]

PAULINE, for a long time Julie d'Aiglemont's waiting-maid. [A Woman of Thirty.]

PAULMIER, employed under the Restoration in the Ministry of Finance in Isidore Baudoyer's bureau of Flamet de la Billardiere's division.

Paulmier was a bachelor, but quarreled continually with his married colleague, Chazelles. [The Government Clerks.]

PAZ (Thaddee), Polish descendant of a distinguished Florentine family, the Pazzi, one of whose members had become a refugee in Poland. Living contemporaneously with his fellow-citizen and friend, the Comte Adam Mitgislas Laginski, like him Thaddee Paz fought for his country, later on following him into exile in Paris, during the reign of Louis Philippe. Bearing up bravely in his poverty, he was willing to become steward to the count, and he made an able manager of the Laginski mansion. He gave up this position, when, having become enamored of Clementine Laginska, he saw that he could no longer control his pa.s.sion by means of a pretended mistress, Marguerite Turquet, the horsewoman. Paz (p.r.o.nounced Pac), who had willingly a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of captain, had seen the Steinbocks married. His departure from France was only feigned, and he once more saw the Comtesse Laginska, during the winter of 1842. At Rusticoli he took her away from La Palferine, who was on the point of carrying her away. [The Imaginary Mistress.

Cousin Betty.]

PECHINA (La), nick-name of Genevieve Niseron.

PEDEROTTI (Signor), father of Madame Maurice de l'Hostal. He was a Genoa banker; gave his only daughter a dowry of a million; married her to the French consul, and left her, on dying six months later in January, 1831, a fortune made in grain and amounting to two millions.

Pederotti had been made count by the King of Sardinia, but, as he left no male heir, the t.i.tle became extinct. [Honorine.]

PELLETIER, one of Bena.s.sis' patients in Isere, who died in 1829, was buried on the same day as the last "cretin," which had been kept on account of popular superst.i.tion. Pelletier left a wife, who saw Genestas, and several children, of whom the eldest, Jacques, was born about 1807. [The Country Doctor.]

PEN-HOEL (Jacqueline de), of a very old Breton family, lived at Guerande, where she was born about 1780. Sister-in-law of the Kergarouets of Nantes, the patrons of Major Brigaut, who, despite the displeasure of the people, did not themselves hesitate to a.s.sume the name of Pen-Hoel. Jacqueline protected the daughters of her younger sister, the Vicomtesse de Kergarouet. She was especially attracted to her eldest niece, Charlotte, to whom she intended to give a dowry, as she desired the girl to marry Calyste du Guenic, who was in love with Felicite des Touches. [Beatrix.]

PEROUX (Abbe), brother of Madame Julliard; vicar of Provins during the Restoration. [Pierrette.]

PERRACHE, small hunchback, shoemaker by trade, and, in 1840, porter in a house belonging to Corentin on rue Honore-Chevalier, Paris. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

PERRACHE (Madame), wife of the preceding, often visited Madame Cardinal, niece of Toupillier, one of Corentin's renters. [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]

PERRET, with his partner, Grosstete, preceded Pierre Graslin in a banking-house at Limoges, in the early part of the nineteenth century.

[The Country Parson.]

PERRET (Madame), wife of the preceding, an old woman in 1829, disturbed herself, as did every one in Limoges, over the a.s.sa.s.sination committed by Jean-Francois Tascheron. [The Country Parson.]

PERROTET, in 1819, laborer on Felix Grandet's farm in the suburbs of Saumur. [Eugenie Grandet.]

PEt.i.t-CLAUD, son of a very poor tailor of L'Houmeau, a suburb of Angouleme, where he pursued his studies in the town lyceum, becoming acquainted at the same time with Lucien de Rubempre. He studied law at Poitiers. On going back to the chief city of La Charente, he became clerk to Maitre Olivet, an attorney whom he succeeded. Now began Pet.i.t-Claud's period of revenge for the insults which his poverty and homeliness had brought on. He met Cointet, the printer, and went into his employ, although at the same time he feigned allegiance to the younger Sechard, also a printer. This conduct paved the way for his accession to the magistracy. He was in turn deputy and king's procureur. Pet.i.t-Claud did not leave Angouleme, but made a profitable marriage in 1822 with Mademoiselle Francoise de la Haye, natural daughter of Francis du Hautoy and of Madame de Senonches. [Lost Illusions.]

PEt.i.t-CLAUD (Madame), wife of the preceding, natural daughter of Francis du Hautoy and of Madame de Senonches; born Francoise de la Haye, given into the keeping of old Madame Cointet; married through the instrumentality of Madame Cointet's son, the printer, known as Cointet the Great. Madame Pet.i.t-Claud, though insignificant and forward, was provided with a very substantial dowry. [Lost Illusions.]

PEYRADE, born about 1758 in Provence, Comtat, in a large family of poor people who eked out a scant subsistence on a small estate called Canquoelle. Peyrade, paternal uncle of Theodose de la Peyrade, was of n.o.ble birth, but kept the fact secret. He went from Avignon to Paris in 1776, where he entered the police force two years later. Lenoir thought well of him. Peyrade's success in life was impaired only by his immoralities; otherwise it would have been much more brilliant and lasting. He had a genius for spying, also much executive ability.

Fouche employed him and Corentin in connection with the affair of Gondreville's imaginary abduction. A kind of police ministry was given to him in Holland. Louis XVIII. counseled with him and gave him employment, but Charles X. held aloof from this shrewd employe.

Peyrade lived in poverty on rue des Moineaux with an adored daughter, Lydie, the child of La Beaumesnil of the Comedie-Francaise. Certain events brought him into the notice of Nucingen, who employed him in the search for Esther Gobseck, at the same time warning him against the courtesan's followers. The police department, having been told of this arrangement by the so-called Abbe Carlos Herrera, would not permit him to enter into the employ of a private individual. Despite the protection of his friend, Corentin, and the talent as a policeman, which he had shown under the a.s.sumed names of Canquoelle and Saint-Germain, especially in connection with F. Gaudissart's seizure, Peyrade failed in his struggle with Jacques Collin. His excellent transformation into a nabob defender of Madame Theodore Gaillard made the former convict so angry that, during the last years of the Restoration, he took revenge on him by making away with him. Peyrade's daughter was abducted and he died from the effects of poison. [The Gondreville Mystery. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

PEYRADE (Lydie).[*] (See La Peyrade, Madame Theodose de.)