BOCQUILLON, an acquaintance of Mme. Etienne Gruget. In 1820, rue des
Enfants-Rouges, Paris, she mistook for him the stock-broker, Jules
Desmarets, who was entering her door. [The Thirteen.]
BOGSECK (Madame van), name bestowed by Jacques Collin on Esther van
Gobseck when, in 1825, he gave her, transformed morally and
intellectually, to Lucien de Rubempre, in an elegant flat on rue
Taitbout. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
BOIROUGE, president of the Sancerre Court at the time when the Baronne
de la Baudraye held social sway over that city. Through his wife, he
was related to the Popinot-Chandiers, to Judge Popinot of Paris, and
to Anselme Popinot. He was hereditary owner of a house which he did
not need, and which he very gladly leased to the baronne for the
purpose of starting a literary society that, however, degenerated very
soon into an ordinary clique. Actuated by jealousy, President Boirouge
was one of the principals in the defeat of Procureur Clagny for
deputy. He was reputed to be unchaste at repartee. [The Muse of the
Department.]
BOIROUGE (Madame), nee Popinot-Chandier, wife of President Boirouge;
stood well among the middle-class of Sancerre. After having been
leader in the opposition to Mme. de la Baudraye for nine years, she
induced her son Gatien to attend the Baudraye receptions, persuading
herself that he would soon make his way. Profiting by the visit of
Bianchon to Sancerre, Mme. Boirouge obtained of the famous physician,
her relative, a gratuitous consultation by giving him full particulars
regarding some pretended nervous trouble of the stomach, in which
complaint he recognized a periodic dyspepsia. [The Muse of the
Department.]
BOIROUGE (Gatien), son of President Boirouge; born in 1814; the junior
"patito" of Mme. de la Baudraye, who employed him in all sorts of
small ways. Gatien Boirouge was made game of by Lousteau, to whom he
had confessed his love for that masterful woman. [The Muse of the
Department.]
BOISFRANC (De), procureur-general, then first president of a royal
court under the Restoration. (See Dubut.)
BOISFRANC (Dubut de), president of the Aides court under the old
regime; brother of Dubut de Boisfrelon and of Dubut de Boislaurier.
[The Seamy Side of History.]
BOISFRELON (Dubut de), brother of Dubut de Boisfranc and of Dubut de
Boislaurier; at one time councillor in Parliament; born in 1736; died
in 1832 in the home of his niece, the Baronne de la Chanterie.
Godefroid succeeded him. M. de Boisfrelon had been one of the
"Brotherhood of Consolation." He was married, but his wife probably
died before him. [The Seamy Side of History.]
BOISLAURIER (Dubut de), junior brother of Dubut de Boisfranc and of
Dubut de Boisfrelon. Commander-in-chief of the Western Rebellion in
1808-1809, and designated then by the surname of Augustus. With
Rifoel, Chevalier du Vissard, he plotted the organization of the
"Chauffeurs" of Mortagne. Then, in the trial of the "brigands," he was
condemned to death by default. [The Seamy Side of History.]
BOIS-LEVANT, chief of division under the Minister of Finance in 1824,
at the time when Xavier Rabourdin and Isidore Baudoyer contested the
succession of office in another division, that of F. de la
Billardiere. [The Government Clerks.]
BOLESLAS, Polish servant of the Comte and Comtesse Laginski, in rue de
la Pepiniere, Paris, between 1835 and 1842. [The Imaginary Mistress.]
BONAMY (Ida), aunt of Mlle. Antonia Chocardelle. At the time of Louis
Philippe, she conducted, on rue Coquenard (since 1848 rue Lamartine),
"just a step or two from rue Pigalle," a reading-room given to her
niece by Maxime de Trailles. [A Man of Business.]
BONAPARTE (Napoleon), Emperor of the French; born at Ajaccio, August
15, 1768, or 1769, according to varying accounts; died at St. Helena
May 5, 1821. As First Consul in 1800 he received at the Tuileries the
Corsican, Bartholomeo di Piombo, and disentangled his countryman from
the latter's implication in a vendetta. [The Vendetta.] On the evening
of the battle of Jena, October 13, 1806, he was met on that ground by
Laurence de Cinq-Cygne, who had come post haste from France, and to
whom he accorded pardon for the Simeuses and the Hauteserres,
compromised in the abduction of Senator Malin de Gondreville. [The
Gondreville Mystery.] Napoleon Bonaparte was strongly concerned in the
welfare of his lieutenant, Hyacinthe Chabert, during the battle of
Eylau. [Colonel Chabert.] In November, 1809, he was to have attended a
grand ball given by Senator Malin de Gondreville; but he was detained
at the Tuileries by a scene--noised abroad that same evening--between
Josephine and himself, a scene which disclosed their impending
divorce. [Peace in the House.] He condoned the infamous conduct of the
police officer Contenson. [The Seamy Side of History.] In April, 1813,
during a dress-parade on the Place du Carrousel, Paris, Napoleon
noticed Mlle. de Chatillonest, who had come with her father to see the
handsome Colonel d'Aiglemont, and leaning towards Duroc he made a
brief remark which made the Grand Marshal smile. [A Woman of Thirty.]
BONAPARTE (Lucien), brother of Napoleon Bonaparte; born in 1775; died
in 1840. In June, 1800, he went to the house of Talleyrand, the
Foreign Minister, and there announced to him and also to Fouche,
Sieyes and Carnot, the victory of his brother at Montebello. [The
Gondreville Mystery.] In the month of October of the same year he was
encountered by his countryman, Bartholomeo di Piombo, whom he
introduced to the First Consul; he also gave his purse to the Corsican
and afterwards contributed towards relieving his difficulties. [The
Vendetta.]
BONFALOT, or BONVALOT (Madame), an aged relative of F. du Bruel at
Paris. La Palferine first met Mme. du Bruel in 1834 on the boulevard,
and boldly followed her all the way to Mme. de Bonfalot's, where she
was calling. [A Prince of Bohemia.]
BONFONS (Cruchot de), nephew of Cruchot the notary and Abbe Cruchot;
born in 1786; president of the Court of First Instance of Saumur in
1819. The Cruchot trio backed by a goodly number of cousins and allied
to twenty families in the city, formed a party similar to that of the
olden-time Medicis at Florence; and also, like the Medicis, the
Cruchots had their Pazzis in the persons of the Grassins. The prize
contested for between the Cruchots and the Grassins was the hand of
the rich heiress, Eugenie Grandet. In 1827, after nine years of suing,
the President Cruchot de Bonfons married the young woman, now left an
orphan. Previous to this he had been commissioned by her to settle in
full, both principal and interest, with the creditors of Charles
Grandet's father. Six months after his marriage, Bonfons was elected
councillor to the Royal Court of Angers. Then after some years
signalized by devoted service he became first president. Finally
chosen deputy for Saumur in 1832, he died within a week, leaving his
widow in possession of an immense fortune, still further augmented by
the bequests of the Abbe and the notary Cruchot. Bonfons was the name
of an estate of the magistrate. He married Eugenie only through
cupidity. He looked like "a big, rusty nail." [Eugenie Grandet.]
BONFONS (Eugenie Cruchot de), only daughter of M. and Mme. Felix
Grandet; born at Saumur in 1796. Strictly reared by a mother gentle
and devout, and by a father hard and avaricious. The single bright ray
across her life was an absolutely platonic love for her cousin Charles
Grandet. But, once away from her, this young man was forgetful of her;
and, on his return from the Indies in 1827, a rich man, he married the
young daughter of a nobleman. Upon this occurrence, Eugenie Grandet,
now an orphan, settled in full with the creditors of Charles' father,
and then bestowed her hand upon the President Cruchot de Bonfons, who
had paid her court for nine years. At the age of thirty-six she was
left a widow without having ceased to be a virgin, following her
expressed wish. Sadly she secluded herself in the gloomy home of her
childhood at Saumur, where she devoted the rest of her life to works
of benevolence and charity. After her father's death, Eugenie was
often alluded to, by the Cruchot faction, as Mlle. de Froidfond, from
the name of one of her holdings. In 1832 an effort was made to induce
Mme. de Bonfons to wed with Marquis de Froidfond, a bankrupt widower
of fifty odd years and possessed of numerous progeny. [Eugenie
Grandet.]
BONGRAND, born in 1769; first an advocate at Melun, then justice of
the peace at Nemours from 1814 to 1837. He was a friend of Doctor
Mirouet's and helped educate Ursule Mirouet, protecting her to the
best of his ability after the death of the old physician, and aiding
in the restitution of her fortune which Minoret-Levrault had impaired
by the theft of the doctor's will. M. Bongrand had wanted to make a
match between Ursule Mirouet and his son, but she loved Savinien de
Portenduere. The justice of the peace became president of the court at
Melun, after the marriage of the young lady with Savinien. [Ursule
Mirouet.]
BONGRAND (Eugene), son of Bongrand the justice of the peace. He
studied law at Paris under Derville the attorney, this constituting
all his course. He became public prosecutor at Melun after the
Revolution of 1830, and general prosecutor in 1837. Failing in his
love suit with Ursule Mirouet, he probably married the daughter of M.
Levrault, former mayor of Nemours. [Ursule Mirouet.]
BONNAC, a rather handsome young fellow, who was head clerk for the
notary Lupin at Soulanges in 1823. His accomplishments were his only
dowry. He was loved in platonic fashion by his employer's wife, Mme.
Lupin, otherwise known as Bebelle, a fat ridiculous female without
education. [The Peasantry.]
BONNEBAULT, retired cavalry soldier, the Lovelace of the village of
Blangy, Burgundy, and its suburbs in 1823. Bonnebault was the lover of
Marie Tonsard who was perfectly foolish about him. He had still other
"good friends" and lived at their expense. Their generosity did not
suffice for his dissipations, his cafe bills and his unbridled taste
for billiards. He dreamed of marrying Aglae Socquard, only daughter of
Pere Socquard, proprietor of the "Cafe de la Paix" at Soulanges.
Bonnebault obtained three thousand francs from General de Montcornet
by coming to him to confess voluntarily that he had been commissioned
to kill him for this price. The revelation, with other things, lead
the general to weary of his fierce struggle with the peasantry, and to
put up for sale his property at Aigues, which became the prey of
Gaubertin, Rigou and Soudry. Bonnebault was squint-eyed and his
physical appearance did not belie his depravity. [The Peasantry.]
BONNEBAULT (Mere), grandmother of Bonnebault the veteran. In 1823, at
Conches, Burgandy, where she lived, she owned a cow which she did not
hesitate to pasture in the fields belonging to General de Montcornet.
The numerous depredations of the old woman, added to convictions for
many similar offences, caused the general to decide to confiscate the
cow. [The Peasantry.]
BONNET (Abbe), Cure of Montegnac near Limoges from 1814 on. In this
capacity, he assisted at the public confession of his penitent, Mme.
Graslin, in the summer of 1844. Upon leaving the seminary of
Saint-Sulpice, Paris, he was sent to this village of Montegnac, which
he never after wished to leave. Here, sometimes unaided, sometimes
with the help of Mme. Graslin, he toiled for a material and moral
betterment, bringing about an entire regeneration of a wretched
country. It was he who brought the outlawed Tascheron back into the
Church, and who accompanied him to the very foot of the scaffold, with
a devotion which caused his own very sensitive nature much cringing.
Born in 1788, he had embraced the ecclesiastical calling through
choice, and all his studies had been to that end. He belonged to a
family of more than easy circumstancaes. His father was a self-made
man, stern and unyielding. Abbe Bonnet had an older brother, and a
sister whom he counseled with his mother to marry as soon as possible,
in order to release the young woman from the terrible paternal yoke.
[The Country Parson.]
BONNET, older brother of Abbe Bonnet, who enlisted as a private about
the beginning of the Empire. He became a general in 1813; fell at
Leipsic. [The Country Parson.]
BONNET (Germain), _valet de chambre_ of Canalis in 1829, at the time
when the poet went to Havre to contest the hand of Modeste Mignon. A
servant full of _finesse_ and irreproachable in appearance, he was of
the greatest service to his master. He courted Philoxene Jacmin,
chambermaid of Mme. de Chaulieu. Here the pantry imitated the parlor,
for the academician's mistress was the great lady herself. [Modest
Mignon.]
BONTEMS, a country landowner in the neighborhood of Bayeux, who
feathered his nest well during the Revolution, by purchasing
government confiscations at his own terms. He was pronounced "red
cap," and became president of his district. His daughter, Angelique
Bontems, married Granville during the Empire; but at this time Bontems
was dead. [A Second Home.]
BONTEMS (Madame), wife of the preceding; outwardly pious, inwardly
vain; mother of Angelique Bontems, whom she had reared in much the
same attitude, and whose marriage with a Granville was, in
consequence, so unhappy. [A Second Home.]