VERMUT, a druggist of Soulanges, in Bourgogne, during the Restoration;
brother-in-law of Sarcus, the Soulanges justice of the peace, who had
married his eldest sister. Though quite a distinguished chemist,
Vermut was the object of the pleasantries and contemptuous remarks of
the Soudry salon, especially at the hands of the Gourdons. Despite the
slight esteem "of the first society of Soulanges," Vermut gave
evidence of ability, when he disturbed Madame Pigeron by finding
traces of poison in the body of her dead husband. [The Peasantry.]
VERMUT (Madame), wife of the preceding; life and soul of the salon of
Madame Soudry, who, however, declared that she was "bad form," and
reproached her for flirting with Gourdon, author of "La Bilboqueide."
[The Peasantry.]
VERNAL (Abbe), one of the four Vendean leaders, in 1799, when
Montauran was opposing Hulot, the other three being Chatillon,
Suzannet, and the Comte de Fontaine. [The Chouans.]
VERNET (Joseph), born in 1714, died in 1789, a famous French artist;
patronized the Cat and Racket, a drapery establishment on the rue
Saint-Denis, of which M. Guillaume, father-in-law of Sommervieux, was
proprietor. [At the Sign of the Cat and Racket.]
VERNEUIL (Marquis de), member of a historic family, and probably an
ancestor of the Verneuils of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
In 1591, he was on intimate terms, with the Norman Comte d'Herouville,
ancestor of the keeper of Josepha Mirah, star of the Royal Academy of
Music, about 1838. The relations between the two families continued
unbroken through the centuries. [The Hated Son.]
VERNEUIL (Victor-Amedee, Duc de), probably descended from the
preceding, died before the Revolution; by Mademoiselle Blanche de
Casteran, he had a daughter, Marie-Nathalie--afterwards Madame
Alphonse de Montauran. He acknowledged his natural daughter at the
close of his life, and almost disinherited his legitimate son in her
favor. [The Chouans.]
VERNEUIL (Mademoiselle de), probably a relative of the preceding;
sister of the Prince de Loudon, the Vendean cavalry general; she went
to Mans to save her brother, and died on the scaffold in 1793, after
the Savenay affair. [The Chouans.]
VERNEUIL (Duc de), son of the Duc Victor-Amedee de Verneuil, and
brother of Madame Alphonse de Montauran, with whom he had a lawsuit
over the inheritance left by their father; during the Restoration he
lived in the town of Alencon and was on intimate terms with the
D'Esgrignons of that place. He took Victurnien d'Esgrignon under his
protection, and introduced him to Louis XVIII. [The Chouans.
Jealousies of a Country Town.]
VERNEUIL (Duc de), of the family of the preceding, was present at the
entertainment given by Josepha Mirah, the mistress of the Duc
d'Herouville, when she opened her sumptuous suite of apartments on the
rue de la Ville-l'Eveque, Paris, in Louis Philippe's reign. [Cousin
Betty.]
VERNEUIL (Duc de), a good-natured great nobleman, son-in-law of a
wealthy first president of a royal court, who died in 1800; he was the
father of four children, among them being Mademoiselle Laure and the
Prince Gaspard de Loudon; owned the historic chateau of Rosembray, in
the vicinity of Havre, and close by the forest of Brotonne; there he
received, one day in October, 1829, the Mignon de la Basties,
accompanied by the Herouvilles, Canalis, and Ernest de la Briere, all
of whom were at that time desirous to marry Modeste Mignon, soon to
become Madame de la Briere de la Bastie. [Modeste Mignon.]
VERNEUIL (Duchesse Hortense de), wife of the preceding, a haughty and
pious personage, daughter of a wealthy first president of a royal
court, who died in 1800. Of her four children, only two lived--her
daughter Laure and the Prince Gaspard de Loudon; she was on very
intimate terms with the Herouvilles, and especially with the elderly
Mademoiselle d'Herouville, and received a visit from them, one day in
October, 1829, with the Mignon de la Basties, followed by Melchior de
Canalis and Ernest de la Briere. [Modeste Mignon.]
VERNEUIL (Laure de), daughter of the preceding couple. At the
entertainment at Rosembray in October, 1829, Eleonore de Chaulieu gave
her advice on the subject of tapestry and embroidery. [Modeste
Mignon.]
VERNEUIL (Duchesse de), sister of the Prince de Blamont-Chauvry; an
intimate friend of the Duchesse de Bourbon, sorely tried by the
disasters of the Revolution; aunt and, in a way, mother by adoption of
Blanche-Henriette de Mortsauf (born Lenoncourt). She belonged to a
society of which Saint-Martin was the soul. The Duchesse de Verneuil,
who owned the Clochegourde estate in Touraine, gave it, in her
lifetime, to Madame de Mortsauf, reserving for herself only one room
of the mansion. Madame de Verneuil died in the early part of the
nineteenth century. [The Lily of the Valley.]
VERNEUIL (Marie-Nathalie de).[*] (See Montauran, Marquise Alphonse
de.)
[*] On June 23, 1837, under the title of _Le Gars_, the Ambigu-Comique
presented a drama of Antony Beraud's in five acts and six
tableaux, which was a modified reproduction of the adventures of
Marie-Nathalie de Montauran.
VERNIER (Baron), intendant-general, under obligations to Hector Hulot
d'Ervy, whom he met, in 1843, at the Ambigu theatre, as escort of a
gloriously handsome woman. He afterwards received a visit from the
Baronne Adeline Hulot, coming for information. [Cousin Betty.]
VERNIER, formerly a dyer, who lived on his income at Vouvray
(Touraine), about 1821; a cunning countryman, father of a marriageable
daughter named Claire; was challenged by Felix Gaudissart in 1831, for
having played a practical joke on that illustrious traveling merchant,
and fought a bloodless pistol duel. [Gaudissart the Great.]
VERNIER (Madame), wife of the preceding, a stout little woman, of
robust health; a friend of Madame Margaritis; she gladly contributed
her share to the mystification of Gaudissart as conceived by her
husband. [Gaudissart the Great.]
VERNISSET (Victore de), a poet of the "Angelic School," at the head of
which stood Canalis, the academician; a contemporary of Beranger,
Delavigne, Lamartine, Lousteau, Nathan, Vigny, Hugo, Barbier, Marie
Gaston and Gautier, he moved in various Parisian circles; he was seen
at the Brothers of Consolation on the rue Chanoinesse, and he received
pecuniary assistance from the Baronne de la Chanterie, president of
the above-mentioned association; he was to be found, with Heloise
Brisetout, on the rue Chauchat, at the time of her house-warming in
the apartments in which she succeeded Josepha Mirah; there he met
J.-J. Bixiou, Leon de Lora, Etienne Lousteau and Stidmann; he fell
madly in love with Madame Schontz. He was invited to the marriage of
Celestin Crevel and Valerie Marneffe. [The Seamy Side of History.
Beatrix. Cousin Betty.]
VERNON (Marechal) father of the Duc de Vissembourg and the Prince
Chiavari. [Beatrix.]
VERNOU (Felicien), a Parisian journalist. He used his influence in
starting Marie Godeschal, usually called Mariette, at the Porte
Saint-Martin. The husband of an ugly, vulgar, and crabbed woman, he had
by her children that were by no means welcome. He lived in wretched
lodgings on the rue Mandar, when Lucien de Rubempre was presented to
him. Vernou was a caustic critic on the side of the oppositon. The
uncongeniality of his domestic life embittered his character and his
genius. He was a finished specimen of the envious man, and pursued
Lucien de Rubempre with an alert and malicious jealousy. [A Bachelor's
Establishment. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] In 1834, Blondet recommended him to
Nathan as a "Handy Andy" for a newspaper. [A Daughter of Eve.]
Celestin Crevel invited him to his marriage with Valerie Marneffe.
[Cousin Betty.]
VERNOU (Madame Felicien), wife of the preceding, whose vulgarity was
one of the causes of her husband's bitterness, revealed herself in her
true light to Lucien de Rubempre, when she mentioned a certain Madame
Mahoudeau as one of her friends. [A Distinguished Provincial at
Paris.]
VERT (Michel-Jean-Jerome), nick-named Vermichel, formerly violinist in
the Bourgogne regiment, was occupied, during the Restoration, with the
various callings of fiddler, door-keeper of the Hotel de Ville,
drum-beater of Soulanges, jailer of the local prison, and finally
bailiff's deputy in the service of Brunet. He was intimate friend of
Fourchon, with whom he was in the habit of getting on sprees, and whose
hatred for the Montcornets, owners of Aigues, he shared. [The Peasantry.]
VERT (Madame Michel), wife of the preceding, commonly called
Vermichel, as was the case with her husband; a mustached virago, a
metre in width, and of two hundred and forty pounds weight, but active
in spite of this; she ruled her husband absolutely. [The Peasantry.]
VERVELLE (Antenor), an eccentric bourgeois of Paris, made his fortune
in the cork business. Retiring from the trade, Vervelle became, in his
own way, an amateur artist; wished to form a gallery of paintings, and
believed that he was collecting Flemish specimens, works of Tenier,
Metzu, and Rembrandt; employed Elie Magus to form the collection, and,
with that Jew as go-between, married his daughter Virginie to Pierre
Grassou. Vervelle, at that time, was living in a house of his own on
the rue Boucherat, a part of the rue Saint-Louis (now rue de Turenne),
near the rue Charlot. He also owned a cottage at Ville-d'Avray, in
which the famous Flemish collection was stored--pictures really
painted by Pierre Grassou. [Pierre Grassou.]
VERVELLE (Madame Antenor), wife of the preceding, gladly accepted
Pierre Grassou for a son-in-law, as soon as she found out that Maitre
Cardot was his notary. Madame Vervelle, however, was horrified at the
idea of Joseph Bridau's bursting in Pierre's studio, and "touching up"
the portrait of Mademoiselle Virginie, afterwards Madame Grassou.
[Pierre Grassou.]