VIGNON (Claude), a French critic, born in 1799, brought a remarkable
power of analysis to the study of all questions of art, literature,
philosophy, or political problems. A clear, deep, and unerring judge
of men, a strong psychologist, he was famous in Paris as early as
1821, and was present, at the apartments of Florine, then acting at
the Panorama-Dramatique, at the supper following the presentation of
the "Alcade dans l'Embarras," and had a brilliant conversation on the
subject of the press with Emile Blondet, in the presence of a German
diplomatist. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] In 1834, Claude
Vignon was entrusted with the haute critique of the newspaper founded
by Raoul Nathan. [A Daughter of Eve.] For quite a period Vignon had
Felicite des Touches (Camille Maupin) as his mistress. In 1836, he
brought her back from Italy, accompanied by Lora, when he heard the
story of the domestic difficulties of the Bauvans from Maurice de
l'Hostal, French consul at Genoa. [Honorine.] Again, in 1836, at Les
Touches, Vignon, on the point of giving up Camille Maupin, delivered
to his former mistress a veritable dissertation, of surprising
insight, on the subject of the heart, with reference to Calyste du
Guenic, Gennaro Conti, and Beatrix de Rochefide. Such intimate
knowledge of the human heart had gradually saddened and wearied him;
he sought relief for his ennui in debauchery; he paid attention to La
Schontz, really a courtesan of superior stamp, and moulded her.
[Beatrix.] Afterwards, he became ambitious, and was secretary to
Cottin de Wissembourg, minister of war; this position brought him into
contact with Valerie Marneffe, whom he secretly loved; he, Stidmann,
Steinbock, and Massol, were witnesses of her marriage to Crevel, this
being the second time she had been led to the altar. He was counted
among the habitues of Valerie's salon, when "Jean-Jacques Bixiou was
going . . . to cozen Lisbeth Fischer." [Cousin Betty.] He rallied to
the support of Louis Philippe, and as editor of the Journal des
Debats, and master of requests in the Council of State, he gave his
attention to the lawsuit pending between S.-P. Gazonal and the prefect
of the Pyrenees-Orientales; a position as librarian, a chair at the
Sorbonne, and the decoration bore further testimony to the favor that
he enjoyed. [The Unconscious Humorists.] Vignon's reputation remained
undiminished, and, even in our own time, Madame Noemi Rouvier,
sculptor and novelist, signs the critic's name to her works.
VIGOR, manager of the post-station at Ville-aux-Fayes, during the
Restoration; officer in the National Guard of that sub-prefecture of
Bourgogne; brother-in-law of Leclercq, the banker, whose sister he had
married. [The Peasantry.]
VIGOR, son of the preceding, and, like the rest of his family,
interested in protecting Francois Gaubertin from Montcornet; he was
deputy judge of the court of Ville-aux-Fayes in 1823. [The Peasantry.]
VILLEMOT, head-clerk of Tabareau, the bailiff, was entrusted, in
April, 1845, with the work of superintending the details of the
interment of Sylvain Pons, and also to look after the interests of
Schmucke, who had been appointed residuary legatee by the deceased.
Villemot was entirely under the influence of Fraisier, business agent
of the Camusot de Marvilles. [Cousin Pons.]
VILLENOIX (Salomon de), son of a wealthy Jew named Salomon, who in his
old age had married a Catholic. Brought up in his mother's religion;
he raised the Villenoix estate to a barony. [Louis Lambert.]
VILLENOIX (Pauline Salomon de), born about 1800; natural daughter of
the preceding. During the Restoration, she was made to feel her
origin. Her character and her superiority made her an object of envy
in her provincial circle. Her meeting with Louis Lambert at Blois was
the turning point in her life. Community of age, country,
disappointments, and pride of spirit brought them in touch--a
reciprocated passion was the result. Mademoiselle Salomon de Villenoix
was going to marry Lambert, when the scholar's terrible mental malady
asserted itself. She was frequently able to avert the sick man's
paroxysms; she nursed him, advised him, and guided him, notably at
Croisic, where at her suggestion Lambert related in letter-form the
tragic misfortunes of the Cambremers, which he had just learned. On
her return to Villenoix, Pauline took her fiance with her where she
noted down and understood his last thoughts, sublime in their
incoherence; he died in her arms, and from that time forth she
considered herself the widow of Louis Lambert, whom she had buried in
one of the islands of the lake park at Villenoix. [Louis Lambert. A
Seaside Tragedy.] Two years later, being sensibly aged, and living in
almost total retirement from the world at the town of Tours, but full
of sympathy for weak mortals, Pauline de Villenoix protected the Abbe
Francois Birotteau, the victim of Troubert's hatred. [The Vicar of
Tours.]
VILQUIN, the richest ship-owner of Havre, during the Restoration,
purchased the estates of the bankrupt Charles Mignon, with the
exception of a chalet given by Mignon to Dumay; this dwelling, being
in close proximity to the millionaire's superb villa, and being
occupied by the families of Mignon and Dumay, was the despair of
Vilquin, Dumay obstinately refusing to sell it. [Modeste Mignon.]
VILQUIN (Madame), wife of the preceding, had G.-C. d'Estourny as
lover, previous to his amour with Bettina-Caroline Mignon; by her
husband she had three children, two of whom were girls. The eldest of
these, being richly endowed, was eventually Madame Francisque Althor.
[Modeste Mignon.]
VIMEUX, in 1824, an unassuming justice of the peace in a department of
the North, rebuked his son Adolphe for the kind of life he was leading
in Paris. [The Government Clerks.]
VIMEUX (Adolphe), son of the preceding, in 1824, was copyist emeritus
in Xavier Rabourdin's bureau in the Finance Department. A great dandy,
he thought only of his dress, and was satisfied with meagre fare at
the Katcomb's restaurant; he became a debtor of Antoine, the messenger
boy; secretly his ambition was to marry a rich old lady. [The
Government Clerks.]
VINET had a painful career to start with; a disappointment crossed his
path at the very outset. He had seduced a Mademoiselle de Chargeboeuf,
and he supposed that her parents would acknowledge him as son-in-law,
and endow their daughter richly; so he married her, but her family
disowned her, and he therefore had to rely on himself entirely. As an
attorney at Provins, Vinet made his mark by degrees; as head of the
local opposition, with the aid of Goraud, he succeeded in making use
of Denis Rogron, a wealthy retired merchant, established the "Courrier
de Provins," a Liberalist paper, adroitly defended the Rogrons against
the charge of killing Pierrette Lorrain by slow degrees, was elected
to the Chamber of Deputies about 1830, and became also
attorney-general, and probably minister of justice. [Pierrette. The
Member for Arcis. The Middle Classes. Cousin Pons.]
VINET (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Chargeboeuf, and therefore
one of the descendants of the "noble family of La Brie, a name derived
from the exploit of a knight in the expedition of Saint-Louis," was
mother of two children, who suffered for her happiness. Absolutely
controlled by her husband, rejected and sacrificed by her family from
the time of her marriage, Madame Vinet scarcely dared in the Rogrons'
salon to speak in defence of Pierrette Lorrain, their victim.
[Pierrette.]
VINET (Olivier), son of the preceding couple, born in 1816. A
magistrate, like his father, began his career as deputy king's
attorney at Arcis, advanced to the position of king's attorney in the
town of Mantes, and, still further, was deputy king's attorney, but
now in Paris. Supported by his father's influence, and being noted for
his independent raillery, Vinet was dreaded everywhere. Among the
people of Arcis, he mixed only with the little coterie of government
officials, composed of Goulard, Michu, and Marest. [The Member for
Arcis.] Being a rival of Maitre Fraisier in the affections of Madame
Vatinelle of Mantes, he resolved to destroy this contestant in the
race, and so thwarted his career. [Cousin Pons.] At the Thuilliers',
on the rue Saint-Dominique-d'Enfer, Paris, where he displayed his
usual impertinence, Vinet was an aspirant to the hand of Celeste
Colleville, the heiress, who was eventually Madame Felix Phellion.
[The Middle Classes.]
VIOLETTE, a husbandman, tenanted in the department of Aube, near
Arcis, the Grouage farm, that was a part of the Gondreville estate, at
the time that Peyrade and Corentin, in accordance with Fouche's
instructions, undertook the singular abduction of Senator Malin de
Gondreville. A miserly and deceitful man, this fellow Violette
secretly aided with Malin de Gondreville and the powers of the day
against Michu, the mysterious agent of the Cinq-Cygne, Hauteserre, and
Simeuse families. [The Gondreville Mystery.]
VIOLETTE (Jean), a descendant of the preceding; hosier of Arcis in
1837; took in hand Pigoult's business, as successor to Phileas
Beauvisage. In the electoral stir of 1839, Jean Violette seemed to be
entirely at the disposal of the Gondreville faction. [The Member for
Arcis.]
VIRGINIE, cook in the household of Cesar Birotteau, the perfumer, in
1818. [Cesar Birotteau.]
VIRGINIE, during the years 1835-1836, lady's maid, on the rue
Neuve-des-Mathurins (at present rue des Mathurins), Paris, to
Marie-Eugenie du Tillet, who was at that time engrossed in righting
the imprudent conduct of Angelique-Marie de Vandenesse. [A Daughter
of Eve.]
VIRGINIE, mistress of a Provencal soldier, who, at a later period,
during Bonaparte's campaign in Egypt, was lost for some time in a
desert, where he lived with a female panther. The jealous mistress was
constantly threatening to stab her lover, and he dubbed her Mignonne,
by antiphrasis; in memory of her he gave the same name to the panther.
[A Passion in the Desert.]
VIRGINIE, a Parisian milliner, whose hats were praised, for a
consideration, by Andoche Finot in his newspaper in 1821. [A
Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]
VIRLAZ, a rich furrier of Leipsic, from whom his nephew, Frederic
Brunner, inherited, about the middle of Louis-Philippe's reign. In his
lifetime this Jew, head of the house of Virlaz & Co., had the fortune
of Madame Brunner (first of the name) placed in the coffers of the
Al-Sartchild bank. [Cousin Pons.]
VISSARD (Marquis du), in memory of his younger brother, the Chevalier
Rifoel du Vissard, was created a peer of France by Louis XVIII., who
entered him as a lieutenant in the Maison-Rouge, and made him a
prefect upon the dissolution of the Maison-Rouge. [The Seamy Side of
History.]
VISSARD (Charles-Amedee-Louis-Joseph Rifoel, Chevalier du), noble and
headstrong gentleman; played an important part, after 1789, in the
various anti-revolutionary insurrections of western France. In
December, 1799, he was at the Vivetiere, and his impulsiveness was a
contrast with the coolness of Marquis Alphonse de Montauran, also
called Le Gars. [The Chouans.] He took part in the battle of Quiberon,
and, in company with Boislaurier, took a leading part in the uprising
of the Chauffeurs of Mortagne. Several circumstances, indeed, helped
to strengthen his Royalist inclinations. Fergus found in Henriette
Bryond des Tours-Minieres (Contenson, the spy), who secretly betrayed
him. Like his accomplices, Rifoel du Vissard was executed in 1809. At
times during his anti-revolutionary campaigns he assumed the name of
Pierrot. [The Seamy Side of History.]
VISSEMBOURG (Duc de), son of Marechal Vernon; brother of the Prince de
Chiavari; between 1835 and 1840 presided over a horticultural society,
the vice-president of which was Fabien du Ronceret. [Beatrix.]
VITAGLIANI, tenor at the Argentina, Rome, when Zambinella took the
soprano parts in 1758. Vitagliani was acquainted with J.-E. Sarrasine.
[Sarrasine.]
VITAL, born about 1810, a Parisian hatter, who succeeded Finot Pere,
whose store on rue du Coq was very popular about 1845, and deservedly
so, apparently. He amused J.-J. Bixiou and Leon de Lora by his
ridiculous pretensions. They wished him to supply S.-P. Gazonal with
a hat, and he proposed to sell him a hat like that of Lousteau. On
this occasion Vital showed them the head-covering that he had devised
for Claude Vignon, who was undecided in politics. Vital really
pretended to make each hat according to the personality of the person
ordering it. He praised the Prince de Bethune's hat and dreamed of the
time when high hats would go out of style. [The Unconscious
Humorists.]
VITAL (Madame), wife of the preceding, believed in her husband's
genius and greatness. She was in the store when the hatter received a
call from Bixiou, Lora and Gazonal. [The Unconscious Humorists.]
VITEL, born in 1776, Paris justice of the peace in 1845, an
acquaintance of Doctor Poulain; was succeeded by Maitre Fraisier, a
protege of the Camusot de Marvilles. [Cousin Pons.]
VITELOT, partner of Sonet, the marble-cutter; designed tombstones. He
failed to obtain the contract for monuments to Marsay, the minister,
and to Keller, the officer. It was given to Stidmann. The plans made
by Vitelot having been retouched, were submitted to Wilhelm Schmucke
for the grave of Sylvain Pons, who was buried in Pere-Lachaise.
[Cousin Pons.]
VITELOT (Madame), wife of the preceding, severely rebuked an agent of
the firm for bringing in as a customer W. Schmucke, heir-contestant to
the Pons property. [Cousin Pons.]
VIVET (Madeleine), servant to the Camusot de Marvilles; during nearly
twenty-five years was their feminine Maitre-Jacques. She tried in vain
to gain Sylvain Pons for a husband, and thus to become their cousin.
Madeleine Vivet, having failed in her matrimonial attempts, took a
dislike for Pons, and persecuted him in a thousand ways. [Scenes from
a Courtesan's Life. Cousin Pons.]
VOLFGANG,[*] cashier of Baron du Saint-Empire, F. de Nucingen, when
this well-known Parisian banker of rue Saint-Lazare fell madly in love
with Esther van Gobseck, and when Jacques Falleix's discomfiture
occurred. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]
[*] He lived on rue de L'Arcade, near rue des Mathurins, Paris.
VORDAC (Marquise de), born in 1769, mistress of the rich Lord Dudley;
she had by him a son, Henry. To legitimize this child she arranged a
marriage with Marsay, a bankrupt old gentleman of tarnished
reputation. He demanded payment of the interest on a hundred thousand
francs as a reward for his marriage, and he died without having known
his wife. The widow of Marsay became by her second marriage the
well-known Marquise de Vordac. She neglected her duties as mother
until late in life, and paid no attention to Henri de Marsay except
to propose Miss Stevens as a suitable wife for him. [The Thirteen.]
VULPATO (La), noble Venetian, very frequently present in Fenice; about
1820 tried to interest Emilio Memmi, Prince of Varese, and Massimilla
Doni, Duchesse Cataneo, in each other. [Massimilla Doni.]
VYDER, anagram formed from d'Ervy, and one of the three names taken
successively by Baron Hector Hulot d'Ervy, after deserting his wife.
He hid under this assumed name, when he became a petition-writer in
Paris, in the lower part of Petite Pologne, opposite rue de la
Pepiniere, on Passage du Soleil, to-day called Galerie de Cherbourg.
[Cousin Betty.]
W
WADMANN, an Englishman who owned, near the Marville estate in
Normandie, a cottage and pasture-lands, which Madame Camusot de
Marville talked of buying in 1845, when he was about to leave for
England after twenty years' sojourn in France. [Cousin Pons.]
WAHLENFER or WALHENFER, wealthy German merchant who was murdered at
the "Red Inn," near Andenach, Rhenish Prussia, October, 1799. The deed
was done by Jean-Frederic Taillefer, then a surgeon and
under-assistant-major in the French army, who suffered his comrade,
Prosper Magnan, to be executed for the crime. Wahlenfer was a short,
heavy-set man of rotund appearance, with frank and cordial manners. He
was proprietor of a large pin-manufactory on the outskirts of Neuwied.
He was from Aix-la-Chapelle. Possibly Wahlenfer was an assumed name.
[The Red Inn.]
WALLENROD-TUSTALL-BARTENSTILD (Baron de), born in 1742, banker at
Frankfort-on-the-Main; married in 1804, his only daughter, Bettina, to
Charles Mignon de la Bastie, then only a lieutenant in the French
army; died in 1814, following some disastrous speculations in cotton.
[Modeste Mignon.]
WATSCHILDINE, a London firm which did business with F. de Nucingen,
the banker. On a dark autumn evening in 1821, the cashier, Rodolphe
Castanier, was surprised by the satanic John Melmoth, while he was in
the act of forging the name of his employer on some letters of credit
drawn on the Watschildine establishment. [Melmoth Reconciled.]
WATTEBLED, grocer in Soulanges, Bourgogne, in 1823; father of the
beautiful Madame Plissoud; was in middle class society; kept a store
on the first floor of a house belonging to Soudry, the mayor. [The
Peasantry.]
WATTEVILLE (Baron de), Besancon gentleman of Swiss descent; last
descendant of the well known Dom Jean de Watteville, the renegade Abbe
of Baumes (1613-1703); small and very thin, rather deficient mentally;
spent his life in a cabinet-maker's establishment "enjoying utter
ignorance"; collected shells and geological specimens; usually in good
humor. After living in the Comte, "like a bug in a rug," in 1815 he
married Clotilde-Louise de Rupt, who domineered over him completely.
As soon as her parents died, about 1819, he lived with her in the
beautiful Rupt house on rue de la Prefecture, a piece of property
which included a large garden extending along the rue du Perron. By
his wife, the Baron de Watteville had one daughter, whom he loved
devotedly, so much, indeed, that he lost all authority over her. M. de
Watteville died in 1836, as a result of his fall into the lake on his
estate of Rouxey, near Besancon. He was buried on an islet in this
same lake, and his wife, making great show of her sorrow, had erected
thereon a Gothic monument of marble like the one to Heloise and
Abelard in the Pere-Lachaise. [Albert Savarus.]
WATTEVILLE (Baronne de), wife of the preceding, and after his death of
Amedee de Soulas. (See Soulas, Madame A. de.)
WATTEVILLE (Rosalie de), only daughter of the preceding couple; born
in 1816; a blonde with colorless cheeks and pale-blue eyes; slender
and frail of body; resembled one of Albert Durer's saints. Reared
under her mother's stern oversight, accustomed to the most rigid
religious observances, kept in ignorance of all worldly matters, she
entirely concealed uner her modesty of manner and retiring disposition
her iron character, and her romantic audacity, so like that of her
great-uncle, the Abbe de Watteville; and which was increased by the
resoluteness and pride of the Rupt blood; although destined to marry
Amedee de Soulas, "la fleur de pois"[*] of Besancon, she became
enamoured of the attorney, Albert Savaron de Savarus. By successfully
carrying out her schemes she separated him from the Duchesse
d'Argaiolo, although these two were mutually in love--a separation
which caused Savarus great despair. He never knew of Rosalie's
affection for him, and withdrew to the Grande Chartreuse. Mademoiselle
de Watteville then lived for some time in Paris with her mother, who
was then the wife of Amedee de Soulas. She tried to see the Duchesse
d'Argaiolo, who, believing Savarus faithless, had given her hand to
the Duc de Rhetore. In February, 1838, on meeting her at a charity
ball given for the benefit of the former civil pensioners, Rosalie
made an appointment with her for the Opera ball, when she told her
former rival the secret of her manoeuvres against Madame de Rhetore,
and of her conduct as regards the attorney. Mademoiselle de Watteville
retired finally to Rouxey--a place which she left, only to take a trip
in 1841 on an unknown mission, from which she came back seriously
crippled, having lost an arm and a leg in a boiler explosion on a
steamboat. Henceforth she devoted her life to the exercises of
religion, and left her retreat no more. [Albert Savarus.]
[*] Title of one of the first editions of "A Marriage Settlement."
WERBRUST, associated with Palma, Parisian discounter on rue Saint-
Denis and rue Saint-Martin, during the Restoration; knew the story of
the glory and decay of Cesar Birotteau, the perfumer, who was mayor of
the second district; was the friend of the banker, Jean-Baptiste
d'Aldrigger, at whose burial he was present; carried on business with
the Baron de Nucingen, making a shrewd speculation when the latter
settled for the third time with his creditors in 1836. [Cesar
Birotteau. The Firm of Nucingen.]