BECKER (Edme), a student of medicine who dwelt in 1828 at number 22,
rue de la Montagne-Sainte-Genevieve--the residence of the Marquis
d'Espard. [The Commission in Lunacy.]
BEDEAU, office boy and roustabout for Maitre Bordin, attorney to the
Chatelet in 1787. [A Start in Life.]
BEGA, surgeon in a French regiment of the Army of Spain in 1808. After
having privately accouched a Spaniard under the espionage of her
lover, he was assassinated by her husband, who surprised him in the
telling of this clandestine operation. The foregoing adventure was
told Mme. de la Baudraye, in 1836, by the Receiver of Finances,
Gravier, former paymaster of the Army. [The Muse of the Department.]
BEGRAND (La), a dancer at the theatre of Porte-Sainte-Martin, Paris,
in 1820.* Mariette, who made her debut at this time, also scored a
success. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]
* She shone for more than sixty years as a famous choreographical
artist in the boulevards.
BELLEFEUILLE (Mademoiselle de), assumed name of Caroline Crochard.
BELLEJAMBE, servant of Lieutenant-Colonel Husson in 1837. [A Start in
Life.]
BELOR (Mademoiselle de), young girl of Bordeaux living there about
1822. She was always in search of a husband, whom, for some cause or
other, she never found. Probably intimate with Evangelista. [A
Marriage Settlement.]
BEMBONI (Monsignor), attache to the Secretary of State at Rome, who
was entrusted with the transmission to the Duc de Soria at Madrid of
the letters of Baron de Macumer his brother, a Spanish refugee at
Paris in 1823, 1824. [Letters of Two Brides.]
BENARD (Pieri). After corresponding with a German for two years, he
discovered an engraving by Muller entitled the "Virgin of Dresden." It
was on Chinese paper and made before printing was discovered. It cost
Cesar Birotteau fifteen hundred francs. The perfumer destined this
engraving for the savant Vauquelin, to whom he was under obligations.
[Cesar Birotteau.]
BENASSIS (Doctor), born about 1779 in a little town of Languedoc. He
received his early training at the College of Soreze, Tarn, which was
managed by the Oratorians. After that he pursued his medical studies
at Paris, residing in the Latin quarter. When twenty-two he lost his
father, who left him a large fortune; and he deserted a young girl by
whom he had had a son, in order to give himself over to the most
foolish dissipations. This young girl, who was thoroughly well meant
and devoted to him, died two years after the desertion despite the
most tender care of her now contrite lover. Later Benassis sought
marriage with another young girl belonging to a Jansenist family. At
first the affair was settled, but he was thrown over when the secret
of his past life, hitherto concealed, was made known. He then devoted
his whole life to his son, but the child died in his youth. After
wavering between suicide and the monastery of Grande-Chartreuse,
Doctor Benassis stopped by chance in the poor village of l'Isere, five
leagues from Grenoble. He remained there until he had transformed the
squalid settlement, inhabited by good-for-nothing Cretins, into the
chief place of the Canton, bustling and prosperous. Benassis died in
1829, mayor of the town. All the populace mourned the benefactor and
man of genius. [The Country Doctor.]
BENEDETTO, an Italian living at Rome in the first third of the
nineteenth century. A tolerable musician, and a police spy, "on the
side." Ugly, small and a drunkard, he was nevertheless the lucky
husband of Luigia, whose marvelous beauty was his continual boast.
After an evening spent by him over the wine-cups, his wife in loathing
lighted a brasier of charcoal, after carefully closing all the exits
of the bedchamber. The neighbors rushing in succeeded in saving her
alone; Benedetto was dead. [The Member for Arcis.]
BERENICE, chambermaid and cousin of Coralie the actress of the
Panorama and Gymnase Dramatique. A large Norman woman, as ugly as her
mistress was pretty, but tender and sympathetic in direct proportion
to her corpulence. She had been Coralie's childhood playmate and was
absolutely bound up in her. In October, 1822, she gave Lucien de
Rubempre, then entirely penniless, four five-franc pieces which she
undoubtedly owed to the generosity of chance lovers met on the
boulevard Bonne-Nouvelle. This sum enabled the unfortunate poet to
return to Angouleme. [Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at
Paris.]
BERGERIN was the best doctor at Saumur during the Restoration. He
attended Felix Grandet in his last illness. [Eugenie Grandet.]
BERGMANN (Monsieur and Madame), Swiss. Venerable gardeners of a
certain Comte Borromeo, tending his parks located on the two famous
isles in Lake Major. In 1823 they owned a house at Gersau, near
Quatre-Canton Lake, in the Canton of Lucerne. For a year back they had
let one floor of this house to the Prince and Princesse Gandolphini,
--personages of a novel entitled, "L'Ambitieux par Amour," published
by Albert Savarus in the Revue de l'Est, in 1834. [Albert Savarus.]