GRANDLIEU (Vicomte Juste de), son of Vicomtesse de Grandlieu; brother
of Comtesse Ernest de Restaud; cousin and afterwards husband of
Marie-Athenais de Grandlieu, combining by this marriage the fortunes
of the two houses of Grandlieu and obtaining the title of duke.
[Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Gobseck.]
GRANDLIEU (Vicomtesse Juste de), born about 1820, Marie-Athenais de
Grandlieu; last daughter of Duc and Duchesse de Grandlieu; married to
her cousin, the Vicomte Juste de Grandlieu. She received at Paris in
the first days of the July government, a young married woman like
herself, Mme. Felix de Vandenesse, then in the midst of a flirtation
with Raoul Nathan. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Gobseck. A
Daughter of Eve.]
GRANET, deputy-mayor of the second arrondissement of Paris, in 1818,
under La Billardiere. With his homely wife he was invited to the
Birotteau ball. [Cesar Birotteau.]
GRANET, one of the leading men of Besancon, under Louis Philippe. In
gratitude for a favor done him by Albert Savarus he nominated the
latter for deputy. [Albert Savarus.]
GRANSON (Madame), poor widow of a lieutenant-colonel of artillery
killed at Jena, by whom she had a son, Athanase. From 1816 she lived
at No. 8 rue du Bercail in Alencon, where the benevolence of a distant
relative, Mme. du Bousquier, put in her charge the treasury of a
maternal society against infanticide, and brought her into contact,
under peculiar circumstances, with the woman who afterwards became
Mme. Theodore Gaillard. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]
GRANSON (Athanase), son of the preceding; born in 1793; subordinate in
the mayor's office at Alencon in charge of registry. A sort of poet,
liberal in politics and filled with ambition; weary of poverty and
overflowing with grandiose sentiments. In 1816 he loved, with a
passion that his commonsense combated, Mme. du Bousquier, then Mlle.
Cormon, his senior by more than seventeen years. In 1816 the marriage
dreaded by him took place. He could not brook the blow and drowned
himself in the Sarthe. He was mourned only by his mother and Suzanne
du Val-Noble. [Jealousies of a Country Town.] Nevertheless, eight
years after it was said of him: "The Athanase Gransons must die,
withered up, like the grains which fall on barren rock." [The
Government Clerks.]
GRANVILLE (Comte de), had a defective civil status, the orthography of
the name varying frequently through the insertion of the letter "d"
between the "n" and "v." In 1805 at an advanced age he lived at
Bayeux, where he was probably born. His father was a president of the
Norman Parliament. At Bayeux the Comte married his son to the wealthy
Angelique Bontems. [A Second Home.]
GRANVILLE (Vicomte de), son of Comte de Granville, and comte upon his
father's death; born about 1779; a magistrate through family
tradition. Under the guidance of Cambaceres he passed through all the
administrative and judicial grades. He studied with Maitre Bordin,
defended Michu in the trial resulting from the "Gondreville Mystery,"
and learned officially and officiously of one of its results a short
time after his marriage with a young girl of Bayeux, a rich heiress
and the acquirer of extensive public lands. Paris was generally the
theatre for the brilliant career of Maitre Granville who, during the
Empire, left the Augustin quai where he had lived to take up his abode
with his wife on the ground-floor of a mansion in the Marais, between
rue Vielle-du-Temple and rue Nueve-Saint-Francois. He became
successively advocate-general at the court of the Seine, and president
of one of its chambers. At this time a domestic drama was being
enacted in his life. Hampered in his open and broad-minded nature by
the bigotry of Mme. de Granville, he sought domestic happiness outside
his home, though he already had a family of four children. He had met
Caroline Crochard on rue du Tourniquet-Saint-Jean. He installed her on
rue Taitbout and found in this relation, though it was of brief
duration, the happiness vainly sought in his proper home. Granville
screened this fleeting joy under the name of Roger. A daughter
Eugenie, and a son Charles, were born of this adulterous union which
was ended by the desertion of Mlle. Crochard and the misconduct of
Charles. Until the death of Mme. Crochard, the mother of Caroline,
Granville was able to keep up appearances before his wife. Thus it
happened that he accompanied her to the country, Seine-et-Oise, when
he assisted M. d'Albon and M. de Sucy. The remainder of Granville's
life, after his wife and his mistress left him, was passed in
comparative solitude in the society of intimate friends like Octave de
Bauvan and Serizy. Hard work and honors partially consoled him. His
request as attorney-general caused the reinstatement of Cesar
Birotteau, one of the tenants at No. 397 rue Saint-Honore. He and his
wife had been invited to the famous ball given by Birotteau more than
three years previously. As attorney-general of the Court of Cassation,
Granville secretly protected Rubempre during the poet's famous trial,
thus drawing upon himself the powerful affection of Jacques Collin,
counterbalanced by the enmity of Amelie Camusot. The Revolution of
July upheld Granville's high rank. He was peer of France under the new
regime, owning and occupying a small mansion on rue Saint-Lazare, or
traveling in Italy. At this time he was one of Dr. Bianchon's
patients. [The Gondreville Mystery. A Second Home. Farewell. Cesar
Birotteau. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. A Daughter of Eve. Cousin
Pons.]
GRANVILLE (Comtesse Angelique de), wife of preceding, and daughter of
Bontems, a farmer and sort of Jacobin whom the Revolution enriched
through the purchase of evacuated property at low prices. She was born
at Bayeux in 1787, and received from her mother a very bigoted
education. At the beginning of the Empire she married the son of one
of the neighbors of the family, then Vicomte and later Comte de
Granville; and, under the influence of Abbe Fontanon, she maintained
at Paris the manners and customs of an extreme devotee. She thus
evoked the infidelity of her husband who had begun by simply
neglecting her. Of her four children she retained charge of the
education of her two daughters. She broke off entirely from her
husband when she discovered the existence of her rival, Mlle. de
Bellefeuille--Caroline Crochard--and returned to Bayeux to end her
days, remaining to the last the austere, stingy sanctified creature
who had formerly been scandalized by the openness of the affair of
Montriveau and Mme. de Langeais. She died in 1822. [A Second Home. The
Thirteen. A Daughter of Eve.]
GRANVILLE (Vicomte de), elder son of the preceding. Was reared by his
father. In 1828 he was deputy-attorney at Limoges, where he afterwards
became advocate-general. He fell in love with Veronique Graslin, but
incurred her secret disfavor by his proceedings against the assassin
Tascheron. The vicomte had a career almost identical with that of his
father. In 1833 he was made first president at Orleans, and in 1844
attorney-general. Later near Limoges he came suddenly upon a scene
which moved him deeply: the public confession of Veronique Graslin.
The vicomte had unknowingly been the executioner of the chatelaine of
Montegnac. [A Second Home. A Daughter of Eve. The Country Parson.]
GRANVILLE (Baron Eugene de), younger brother of the foregoing. King's
attorney at Paris from May, 1830. Three years later he still held this
office, when he informed his father of the arrest of a thief named
Charles Crochard, who was the count's natural son. [Scenes from a
Courtesan's Life. A Second Home.]