BREAUTEY (Comtesse de), a venerable woman of Provins, who maintained
the only aristocratic salon in that city, in 1827-1828. [Pierrette.]
BREBIAN (Alexandre de), member of the Angouleme aristocracy in 1821.
He frequented the Bargeton receptions. An artist like his friend
Bartas, he also was daft over drawing and would ruin every album in
the department with his grotesque productions. He posed as Mme. de
Bartas' lover, since Bartas paid court to Mme. de Brebian. [Lost
Illusions.]
BREBIAN (Charlotte de), wife of the preceding. Currently called
"Lolotte." [Lost Illusions.]
BREINTMAYER, a banking house of Strasbourg, entrusted by Michu in 1803
with the transmission of funds to the De Simeuses, young officers of
the army of Conde. [The Gondreville Mystery.]
BREZACS (The), Auvergnats, dealers in general merchandise and the
furnishings of chateaux during the Revolution, the Empire and the
Restoration. They had business dealings with Pierre Graslin,
Jean-Baptiste Sauviat and Martin Falleix. [The Country Parson. The
Government Clerks.]
BRIDAU, father of Philippe and Joseph Bridau; one of the secretaries
of Roland, Minister of the Interior in 1792, and the right arm of
succeeding ministers. He was attached fanatically to Napoleon, who
could appreciate him, and who made him chief of division in 1804. He
died in 1808, at the moment when he had been promised the offices of
director general and councillor of state with the title of comte. He
first met Agathe Rouget, whom he made his wife, at the home of the
grocer Descoings, the man whom he tried to save from the scaffold. [A
Bachelor's Establishment.]
BRIDAU (Agathe Rouget, Madame), wife of the preceding; born in 1773.
Legal daughter of Dr. Rouget of Issoudun, but possibly the natural
daughter of Sub-delegate Lousteau. The doctor did not waste any
affection upon her, and lost no time in sending her to Paris, where
she was reared by her uncle, the grocer Descoings. She died at the
close of 1828. Of her two sons, Philippe and Joseph, Mme. Bridau
always preferred the elder, though he caused her nothing but grief. [A
Bachelor's Establishment.]
BRIDAU (Philippe), elder son of Bridau and Agathe Rouget. Born in
1796. Placed in the Saint-Cyr school in 1813, he remained but six
months, leaving it to become under-lieutenant of the cavalry. On
account of a skirmish of the advance guard he was made full
lieutenant, during the French campaign, then captain after the battle
of La Fere-Champenoise, where Napoleon made him artillery officer. He
was decorated at Montereau. After witnessing the farewell at
Fontainebleu, he came back to his mother in July, 1814, being then
hardly nineteen. He did not wish to serve the Bourbons. In March,
1815, Philippe Bridau rejoined the Emperor at Lyons, accompanying him
to the Tuileries. He was promised a captaincy in a squadron of
dragoons of the Guard, and made officer of the Legion of Honor at
Waterloo. Reduced to half-pay, during the Restoration, he nevertheless
preserved his rank and officer's cross. He rejoined General Lallemand
in Texas, returning from America in October, 1819, thoroughly
degenerated. He ran an opposition newspaper in Paris in 1820-1821. He
led a most dissolute life; was the lover of Mariette Godeschal; and
attended all the parties of Tullia, Florentine, Florine, Coralie,
Matifat and Camusot. Not content with using the income of his brother
Joseph, he stole a coffer entrusted to him, and despoiled of her last
savings Mme. Descoings, who died of grief. Involved in a military plot
in 1822, he was sent to Issoudun, under the surveillance of the
police. There he created a disturbance in the "bachelor's
establishment" of his uncle, Jean-Jacques Rouget; killed in a duel
Maxence Gilet, the lover of Flore Brazier; brought about the girl's
marriage with his uncle; and married her himself when she became a
widow in 1824. When Charles X. succeeded to the throne, Philippe
Bridau re-entered the army as lieutenant-colonel of the Duc de
Maufrigneuse's regiment. In 1827 he passed with this grade into a
regiment of cavalry of the Royal Guard, and was made Comte de
Brambourg from the name of an estate which he had purchased. He was
promised further the office of commander in the Legion of Honor, as
well as in the Order of Saint-Louis. After having consciously caused
the death of his wife, Flore Brazier, he tried to marry Amelie de
Soulanges, who belonged to a great family. But his manoeuvres were
frustrated by Bixiou. The Revolution of 1830 resulted in the loss to
Philippe Bridau of a portion of the fortune which he had obtained from
his uncle by his marriage. Once more he entered military service,
under the July Government, which made him a colonel. In 1839 he fell
in an engagement with the Arabs in Africa. [A Bachelor's
Establishment. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
BRIDAU (Joseph), painter; younger brother of Philippe Bridau; born in
1799. He studied with Gros, and made his first exhibit at the Salon of
1823. He received great stimulus from his fellow-members of the
"Cenacle," in rue Quatre-Vents, also from his master, from Gerard and
from Mlle. des Touches. Moreover he was a hard-worker and an artist of
genius. He was decorated in 1827, and about 1839, through the interest
of the Comte de Serizy, for whose home he had formerly done some work,
he married the only daughter of a retired farmer, now a millionaire.
On the death of his brother Philippe, he inherited his house in rue de
Berlin, his estate of Brambourg, and his title of comte. [A Bachelor's
Establishment. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Start in Life.]
Joseph Bridau made some vignettes for the works of Canalis. [Modeste
Mignon.] He was intimate with Hippolyte Schinner, whom he had known at
Gros' studio. [The Purse.] Shortly after 1830, he was present at an
"at home" at Mlle. des Touches, when Henri de Marsay told about his
first love affair. [Another Study of Woman.] In 1832 he rushed in to
see Pierre Grassou, borrowed five hundred francs of him, and told him
to "cater to his talent" and even to plunge into literature since he
was nothing more than a poor painter. At this same time, Joseph Bridau
painted the dining-hall in the D'Arthez chateau. [Pierre Grassou.] He
was a friend of Marie Gaston, and was attendant at his marriage with
Louise de Chaulieu, widow of Macumer, in 1833. [Letters of Two
Brides.] He also assisted at the wedding of Steinbock with Hortense
Hulot, and in 1838, at the instigation of Stidmann, clubbed in with
Leon de Lora to raise four thousand francs for the Pole, who was
imprisoned for debt. He had made the portrait of Josepha Mirah.
[Cousin Betty.] In 1839, at Mme. Montcornet's, Joseph Bridau praised
the talent and character displayed by Dorlange, the sculptor. [The
Member for Arcis.]
BRIDAU (Flore Brazier, Madame Philippe), born in 1787 at Vatan Indre,
known as "La Rabouilleuse," on account of her uncle having put her to
work, when a child, at stirring up (to "rabouiller") the streamlets,
so that he might find crayfishes. She was noticed on account of her
great beauty by Dr. Rouget of Issoudun, and taken to his home in 1799.
Jean-Jacques Rouget, the doctor's son become much enamored of her, but
obtained favor only through his money. On her part she was smitten
with Maxence Gilet, whom she entertained in the house of the old
bachelor at the latter's expense. But everything was changed by the
arrival of Philippe Bridau at Issoudun. Gilet was killed in a duel,
and Rouget married La Rabouilleuse in 1823. Left a widow soon after,
she married the soldier. She died in Paris in 1828, abandoned by her
husband, in the greatest distress, a prey to innumerable terrible
complaints, the products of the dissolute life into which Philippe
Bridau had designedly thrown her. She dwelt then on rue du Houssay, on
the fifth floor. She left here for the Dubois Hospital in Faubourg
Saint-Denis. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]
BRIDAU (Madame Joseph), only daughter of Leger, an old farmer,
afterwards a multi-millionaire at Beaumont-sur-Oise; married to the
painter Joseph Bridau about 1839. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]
BRIGAUT (Major), of Pen-Hoel, Vendee; retired major of the Catholic
Army which contested with the French Republic. A man of iron, but
devout and entirely unselfish. He had served under Charette, Mercier,
the Baron du Guenic and the Marquis de Montauran. He died in 1819, six
months after Mme. Lorrain, the widow of a major in the Imperial Army,
whom he was said to have consoled on the loss of her husband. Major
Brigaut had received twenty-seven wounds. [Pierrette. The Chouans.]
BRIGAUT (Jacques), son of Major Brigaut; born about 1811. Childhood
companion of Pierrette Lorrain, whom he loved in innocent fashion
similar to that of Paul and Virginia, and whose love was reciprocated
in the same way. When Pierrette was sent to Provins, to the home of
the Rogrons, her relatives, Jacques also went to this town and worked
at the carpenter's trade. He was present at the death-bed of the young
girl and immediately thereafter enlisted as a soldier; he became head
of a battalion, after having several times sought death vainly.
[Pierrette.]