Part 20

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.]

GRANVILLE (Marie-Angelique de). (See Vandenesse, Comtesse Felix de.)

GRANVILLE (Marie-Eugenie de). (See Tillet, Madame Ferdinand du.)

GRASLIN (Pierre), born in 1775. An Auvergnat, compatriot and friend of Sauviat, whose daughter Veronique he married in 1822. He began as a bank-clerk with Grosstete & Perret, a first-class firm of the town. A man of business and a hard worker he became successor to his employers. His fortune, increased by lucky speculations with Brezac, enabled him to buy one of the finest places in the chief city of Haute-Vienne. But he was not able to win his wife's heart. His physical unattractiveness, added to by his carelessness and grinding avarice, were complicated by a domestic tyranny which soon showed itself. Thus it was that he was only the legal father of a son named Francis, but he was ignorant of this fact, for, in the capacity of juror in the Court of Assizes dealing with the fate of Tascheron, the real father of the child, he urged but in vain the acquittal of the prisoner. Two years after the boy's birth and the execution of the mother's lover, in April, 1831, Pierre Graslin died of weakness and grief. The July Revolution suddenly breaking forth had shaken his financial standing, which was regained only with an effort. It was at the time when he had brought Montegnac from the Navarreins. [The Country Parson.]

GRASLIN (Madame Pierre), wife of preceding; born Veronique Sauviat, at Limoges in May, 1802; beautiful in spite of traces of small-pox; had had the spoiled though simple childhood of an only daughter. When twenty she married Pierre Graslin. Soon after marriage her ingenuous nature, romantic and refined, suffered in secret from the harsh tyranny of the man whose name she bore. Veronique, however, held aloof from the gallants who frequented her salon, especially the Vicomte de Granville. She had become the secret mistress of J.-F. Tascheron, a porcelain worker. She was on the point of eloping with him when a crime committed by him was discovered. Mme. Graslin suffered the most poignant anguish, giving birth to the child of the condemned man at the very moment when the father was led to execution. She inflicted upon herself the bitterest flagellations. She could devote herself more freely to penance after her husband's death, which occurred two years later. She left Limoges for Montegnac, where she made herself truly famous by charitable works on a huge scale. The sudden return of the sister of her lover dealt her the final blow. Still she had energy enough to bring about the union of Denise Tascheron and Gregoire Gerard, gave her son into their keeping, left important bequests destined to keep alive her memory, and died during the summer of 1844 after confessing in public in the presence of Bianchon, Dutheil, Granville, Mme. Sauviat and Bonnet who were all seized with admiration and tenderness for her. [The Country Parson.]

GRASLIN (Francis), born at Limoges in August, 1829. Only child of Veronique Graslin, legal son of Pierre Graslin, but natural son of J.-F. Tascheron. He lost his legal father two years after his birth, and his mother thirteen years later. His tutor M. Ruffin, his maternal grandmother Mme. Sauviat, and above all the Gregoire Gerards watched over his boyhood at Montegnac. [The Country Parson.]

GRASSET, bailiff and successor of Louchard. On the demand of Lisbeth Fischer and by Rivet's advice, in 1838, he arrested W. Steinbock in Paris and took him to Clichy prison. [Cousin Betty.]

GRASSINS (Des), ex-quartermaster of the Guard, seriously wounded at Austerlitz, pensioned and decorated. Time of Louis XVIII. he became the richest banker in Saumur, which he left for Paris where he located with the purpose of settling the unfortunate affairs of the suicide, Guillaume Grandet and where he was later made a deputy. Although the father of a family he conceived a passion for Florine, a pretty actress of the Theatre du Madame,* to the havoc of his fortune. [Eugenie Grandet.]

* The name of this theatre was changed, in 1830, to Gymnase-Dramatique.

GRASSINS (Madame des), born about 1780; wife of foregoing, giving him two children; spent most of her life at Saumur. Her husband's position and sundry physical charms which she was able to preserve till nearly her fortieth year enabled her to shine somewhat in society. With the Cruchots she often visited the Grandets, and, like the family of the President de Bonfons, she dreamed of mating Eugenie with her son Adolphe. The dissipated life of her husband at Paris and the combination of the Cruchots upset her plans. Nor was she able to do much for her daughter. However, deprived of much of her property and making the best of things, Mme. des Grassins continued unaided the management of the bank at Saumur. [Eugenie Grandet.]

GRASSINS (Adolphe des), born in 1797, son of M. and Mme. des Grassins; studied law at Paris where he lived in a lavish way. A caller at the Nucingens where he met Charles Grandet. Returned to Saumur in 1819 and vainly courted Eugenie Grandet. Finally he returned to Paris and rejoined his father whose wild life he imitated. [Eugenie Grandet.]

GRASSOU (Pierre), born at Fougeres, Brittany, in 1795. Son of a Vendean peasant and militant Royalist. Removing at an early age to Paris he began as clerk to a paint-dealer who was from Mayenne and a distant relative of the Orgemonts. A mistaken idea led him toward art. His Breton stubbornness led him successively to the studios of Servin, Schinner and Sommervieux. He afterwards studied, but fruitlessly, the works of Granet and Drolling; then he completed his art studies with Duval-Lecamus. Grassou profited nothing by his work with these masters, nor did his acquaintance with Lora or Joseph Bridau assist him. Though he could understand and admire he lacked the creative faculty and the skill in execution. For this reason Grassou, usually called Fougeres by his comrades, obtained their warm support and succeeded in getting admission into the Salon of 1829, for his "Toilet of a Condemned Chouan," a very mediocre painting palpably along the lines of Gerard Dow. The work obtained for him from Charles X. the cross of the Legion of Honor. At last his canvasses found purchasers. Elie Magus gave him an order for pictures after the Flemish school, which he sold to Vervelle as works of Dow or Teniers. At that time Grassou lived at No. 2 rue de Navarin. He became the son-in-law of Vervelle, in 1832, marrying Virginie Vervelle, the heiress of the family, who brought him a dowry of one hundred thousand francs, as well as country and city property. His determined mediocrity opened the doors of the Academy to him and made him an officer in the Legion of Honor in 1830, and major of a battalion in the National Guard after the riots of May 12. He was adored by the middle classes, becoming their accredited artist. Painted portraits of all the members of the Crevel and Thuillier families, and also of the director of the theatre who preceded Gaudissart. Left many frightful and ridiculous daubs, one of which found its way into Topinard's humble home. [Pierre Grassou. A Bachelor's Establishment. Cousin Betty. The Middle Classes. Cousin Pons.]

GRASSOU (Madame Pierre), born Virginie Vervelle; red-haired and homely; sole heiress of wealthy dealers in cork, on rue Boucherat. Wife of the preceding whom she married in Paris in 1832. There is a portrait of her painted in this same year before her marriage, which at first was a colorless study by Grassou, but was dexterously retouched by Joseph Bridau. [Pierre Grassou.]

GRAVELOT brothers, lumber-merchants of Paris, who purchased in 1823 the forests of Aigues, the Burgundy estate of General de Montcornet. [The Peasantry.]

GRAVIER, paymaster-general of the army during the first Empire, and interested at that time in large Spanish affairs with certain commanding officers. Upon the return of the Bourbons he purchased at twenty thousand francs of La Baudraye the office of tax-receiver for Sancerres, which office he still held about 1836. With the Abbe Duret and others he frequented the home of Mme. Dinah de la Baudraye. He was little, fat and common. His court made little way with the baroness, despite his talent and his worldly-wise ways of a bachelor. He sang ballads, told stories, and displayed pseudo-rare autographs. [The Muse of the Department.]

GRAVIER, of Grenoble; head of a family; father-in-law of a notary; chief of division of the prefecture of Isere in 1829. Knew Genestas and recommended to him Dr. Benassis, the mayor of the village of which he himself was one of the benefactors, as the one to attend Adrien Genestas-Renard. [The Country Doctor.]

GRENIER, known as Fleur-de-Genet; deserter from the Sixty-ninth demi-brigade; chauffeur executed in 1809. [The Seamy Side of History.]

GRENOUVILLE, proprietor of a large and splendid notion store in Boulevard des Italiens, Paris, about 1840; a customer of the Bijous, embroiderers also in business at Paris. At this time an ardent admirer of Mlle. Olympe Bijou, former mistress of Baron Hulot and Idamore Chardin. He married her and gave an income to her parents. [Cousin Betty.]

GRENOUVILLE (Madame), wife of the preceding; born Olympe Bijou, about 1824. In the middle of the reign of Louis Philippe she lived in Paris near La Courtille, in rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple. Was a pretty but poor embroiderer surrounded by a numerous and poverty-stricken family when Josepha Mirah obtained for her old Baron Hulot and a shop. Having abandoned Hulot for Idamore Chardin, who left her, Olympe married Grenouville and became a well-known tradeswoman. [Cousin Betty.]

GRENVILLE (Arthur-Ormond, Lord), wealthy Englishman; was being treated at Montpellier for lung trouble when the rupture of the treaty of peace of Amiens confined him to Tours. About 1814 he fell in love with the Marquise Victor d'Aiglemont, whom he afterwards met elsewhere. Posing as a physician he attended her in an illness and succeeded in curing her. He visited her also in Paris, finally dying to save her honor, after suffering his fingers to be crushed in a door--1823. [A Woman of Thirty.]

GREVIN of Arcis, Aube, began life in the same way as his compatriot and intimate friend Malin de Gondreville. In 1787, he was second clerk to Maitre Bordin, attorney of the Chatelet, Paris. Returned to Champagne at the outbreak of the Revolution. There he received the successive protection of Danton, Bonaparte and Gondreville. By virtue of them he became an oracle to the Liberals, was enabled to marry Mlle. Varlet, the only daughter of the best physician of the city, to purchase a notary's practice, and to become wealthy. A level-headed man, Grevin often advised Gondreville, and he directed the mysterious and fictitious abduction--1803 and the years following. Of his union with Mlle. Varlet, who died rather young, one daughter was born, Severine, who became Mme. Phileas Beauvisage. In his old age he devoted a great deal of attention to his children and their brilliant future, especially during the election of May, 1839. [A Start in Life. The Gondreville Mystery. The Member for Arcis.]

GREVIN (Madame), wife of foregoing; born Varlet; daughter of the best doctor of Arcis-sur-Aube; sister of another Varlet, a doctor in the same town; mother of Mme. Severine Phileas Beauvisage. With Mme. Marion she was more or less implicated in the Gondreville mystery. She died rather young. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

GREVIN, corsair, who served under Admiral de Simeuse in the Indies. In 1816, paralyzed and deaf, he lived with his granddaughter, Mme. Lardot, a laundress of Alencon, who employed Cesarine and Suzanne and was patronized by the Chevalier de Valois. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

GRIBEAUCOURT (Mademoiselle de), old maid of Saumur and friend of the Cruchots during the Restoration. [Eugenie Grandet.]

GRIFFITH (Miss), born in 1787; Scotch woman, daughter of a minister in straitened circumstances; under the Restoration she was governess of Louise de Chaulieu, whose love she won by reason of her kindliness and penetration. [Letters of Two Brides.]

GRIGNAULT (Sophie). (See Nathan, Mme. Raoul.)

GRIMBERT, held, in 1819, at Ruffec, Charente, the office of the Royal Couriers. At that time he received from Mlles. Laure and Agathe de Rastignac, a considerable sum of money addressed to their brother Eugene, at the Pension Vauquer, Paris. [Father Goriot.]

GRIMONT, born about 1786; a priest of some capability; cure of Guerande, Brittany. In 1836, a constant visitor at the Guenics, he exerted a tardily acquired influence over Felicite des Touches, whose disappointments in love he fathomed and whom he determined to turn towards a religious life. Her conversion gave Grimont the vicar-generalship of the diocese of Nantes. [Beatrix.]

GRIMPEL, physician at Paris in the Pantheon quarter, time of Louis XVIII. Among his patients was Mme. Vauquer, who sent for him to attend Vautrin when the latter was overcome by a narcotic treacherously administered by Mlle. Michonneau. [Father Goriot.]

GRINDOT, French architect in the first half of the nineteenth century; won the Roman prize in 1814. His talent, which met the approval of the Academy, was heartily recognized by the masses of Paris. About the end of 1818 Cesar Birotteau gave him carte-blanche in the remodeling of his apartments on rue Saint-Honore, and invited him to his ball. Matifat, between the years 1821 and 1822, commissioned him to ornament the suite of Mme. Raoul Nathan on rue de Bondy. The Comte de Serizy employed him likewise in 1822 in the restoration of his chateau of Presles near Beaumont-sur-Oise. About 1829 Grindot embellished a little house on rue Saint-Georges where successively dwelt Suzanne Gaillard and Esther van Gobseck. Time of Louis Philippe, Arthur de Rochefide, and M. and Mme. Fabien du Ronceret gave him contracts. His decline and that of the monarchy coincided. He was no longer in vogue during the July government. On motion of Chaffaroux he received twenty-five thousand francs for the decoration of four rooms of Thuillier's. Lastly Crevel, an imitator and grinder, utilized Grindot on rue des Saussaies, rue du Dauphin and rue Barbet-de-Jouy for his official and secret habitations. [Cesar Birotteau. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Start in Life. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Beatrix. The Middle Classes. Cousin Betty.]

GROISON, non-commissioned officer of cavalry in the Imperial Guard; later, during the Restoraton, estate-keeper of Blangy, where he succeeded Vaudoyer at a salary of three hundred francs. Montcornet, mayor of that commune arranged a marriage between the old soldier and the orphan daughter of one of his farmers who brought him three acres of vineyards. [The Peasantry.]

GROS (Antoine-Jean), celebrated painter born in Paris in 1771, drowned himself June, 1835. Was the teacher of Joseph Bridau and, despite his parsimonious habits, supplied materials--about 1818--to the future painter of "The Venetian Senator and the Courtesan" enabling him to obtain five thousand francs from a double government position. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

GROSLIER, police commissioner of Arcis-sur-Aube at the beginning of the electoral campaign of 1839. [The Member for Arcis.]

GROSMORT, small boy of Alencon in 1816. Left the town in that year and went to Prebaudet, an estate of Mme. du Bousquier, to tell her of Troisville's arrival. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

GROSS-NARP (Comte de), son-in-law, no doubt fictitious, of a very great lady, invented and represented by Jacqueline Collin to serve the menaced interests of Jacques Collin in Paris about the end of the Restoration. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

GROSSTETE (F.), director, with Perret, of a Limoges banking-house, during the Empire and Restoration. His clerk and successor was Pierre Graslin. Retired from business, a married man, wealthy, devoted to horticulture, he spent much of his time in the fields in the outskirts of Limoges. Endowed with a superior intellect, he seemed to understand Veronique Graslin, whose society he sought and whose secrets he tried to fathom. He introduced his godson, Gregoire Gerard, to her. [The Country Parson.]

GROSSTETE (Madame F.), wife of preceding; a person of some importance in Limoges, time of the Restoration. [The Country Parson.]

GROSSTETE, younger brother of F. Grosstete. Receiver-general at Bourges during the Restoration. He had a large fortune which enabled his daughter Anna to wed a Fontaine about 1823. [The Country Parson. The Muse of the Department.]

GROZIER (Abbe) was chosen, in the early part of the Restoration, to arbitrate the dispute of two proof-readers--one of whom was Saint-Simon --over Chinese paper. He proved that the Chinese make their paper from bamboo. [Lost Illusions.] He was librarian of the Arsenal at Paris. Was tutor of the Marquis d'Espard. Was learned in the history and manners of China. Taught this knowledge to his pupil. [The Commission in Lunacy.]*

* Abbe Grozier, or Crozier (Jean Baptiste-Gabriel-Alexandre), born March 1, 1743, at Saint-Omer, died December 8, 1823, at Paris; collaborator of the "Literary Year" with Freron and Geoffroy, and author of a "General History of China"--Paris 1777-1784, 12 vols.

GRUGET (Madame Etienne), born in the latter part of the eighteenth century. About 1820, lace-maker at No. 12 rue des Enfants-Rouges, Paris, where she concealed and cared for Gratien Bourignard, the lover of her daughter Ida, who drowned herself. Bourignard was the father of Mme. Jules Desmarets. [The Thirteen.] Becoming a nurse about the end of 1824, Mme. Gruget attended the division-chief, La Billiardiere, in his final sickness. [The Government Clerks.] In 1828 she followed the same profession for ten sous a day, including board. At that time she attended the last illness of Comtesse Flore Philippe de Brambourg, on rue Chaussee-d'Antin, before the invalid was removed to the Dubois hospital. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

GRUGET (Ida), daughter of the preceding. About 1820 was a corset-fitter at No. 14 rue de la Corderie-du-Temple, Paris; employed by Mme. Meynardie. She was also the mistress of Gatien Bourignard. Passionately jealous, she rashly made a scene in the home of Jules Desmarets, her lover's son-in-law. Then she drowned herself, in a fit of despair, and was buried in a little cemetery of a village of Seine-et-Oise. [The Thirteen.]

GUA SAINT-CYR (Madame du), in spite of the improbability aroused on account of her age, passed for a time, in 1799, as the mother of Alphonse de Montauran. She had been married and was then a widow; Gua was not her true name. She was the last mistress of Charette and, being still young, took his place with the youthful Alphonse de Montauran. She displayed a savage jealousy for Mlle. de Verneuil. One of the first Vendean sallies of 1799, planned by Mme. du Gua, was unsuccessful and absurd. The old "mare of Charette" caused the coach between Mayenne and Fougeres to be waylaid; but the money stolen was that which was being sent her by her mother. [The Chouans.]

GUA SAINT-CYR (Du), name assumed in Brittany, in 1799, by Alphonse de Montauran, the Chouan leader. [The Chouans.]

GUA SAINT-CYR (Monsieur and Madame du), son and mother; rightful bearers of the name were murdered, with the courier, in November by the Chouans. [The Chouans.]