Part 22

DESROCHES, son of the two foregoing; born about 1795, reared strictly by a very harsh father. He went into Derville's office as fourth clerk in 1818, and on the following year passed to the second clerkship. He saw Colonel Chabert at Derville's. In 1821 or 1822 he purchased a lawyer's office with bare title on rue de Bethizy. He was shrewd and quick and therefore was not long in finding a clientele composed of litterateurs, artists, actresses, famous lorettes and elegant Bohemians. He was counsellor for Agathe and Joseph Bridau, and also gave excellent advice to Philippe Bridau who was setting out for Issoudun about 1822. [A Bachelor's Establishment. Colonel Chabert. A Start in Life.] Desroches was advocate for Charles de Vandenesse, pleading against his brother Felix; for the Marquise d'Espard, seeking interdiction against her husband; and for the Secretary-General Chardin des Lupeaulx, with whom he counseled astutely. [A Woman of Thirty. The Commission in Lunacy. The Government Clerks.] Lucien de Rubempre consulted Desroches about the seizure of the furniture of Coralie, his mistress, in 1822. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.] Vautrin appreciated the attorney; he said that the latter would be able to "recover" the Rubempre property, to improve it and make it capable of yielding Lucien an income of thirty thousand francs, which would probably have allowed him to wed Clotilde de Grandlieu. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] In 1826 Desroches made a short-lived attempt to marry Malvina d'Aldrigger. [The Firm of Nucingen.] About 1840 he related, at Mlle. Turquet's--Malaga's--home, then maintained by Cardot the notary, and in the presence of Bixiou, Lousteau and Nathan, who were invited by the tabellion, the tricks employed by Cerizet to obtain the face value of a note out of Maxime de Trailles. [A Man of Business.] Indeed, Desroches was Cerizet's lawyer when the latter had a quarrel with Theodose de la Peyrade in 1840. He also looked after the interests of the contractor, Sauvaignou, at the same time. [The Middle Classes.] Desroches' office was probably located for a time on rue de Buci. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

DESROYS, clerk with the Minister of Finance in Baudoyer's bureau, under the Restoration. The son of a Conventionalist who had not favored the King's death. A Republican; friend of Michel Chrestien. He did not associate with any of his colleagues, but kept his manner of life so concealed that none knew where he lived. In December, 1824, he was discharged because of his opinions concerning the denunciation of Dutocq. [The Government Clerks.]

DESROZIERS, musician; prize-winner at Rome; died in that city through typhoid fever in 1836. Friend of the sculptor Dorlange, to whom he recounted the story of Zambinella, the death of Sarrasine and the marriage of the Count of Lanty. Desroziers gave music lessons to Marianina, daughter of the count. The musician employed his friend, who was momentarily in need of money, to undertake a copy of a statue of Adonis, which reproduced Zambinella's features. This copy he sold to M. de Lanty. [The Member for Arcis.]

DESROZIERS, printer at Moulins, department of the Allier. After 1830 he published a small volume containing the works of "Jan Diaz, son of a Spanish prisoner, and born in 1807 at Bourges." This volume had an introductory sketch on Jan Diaz by M. de Clagny. [The Muse of the Department.]

DEY (Comtesse de), born about 1755. Widow of a lieutenant-general retired to Carentan, department of the Manche, where she died suddenly in November, 1793, through a shock to her maternal sensibilities. [The Conscript.]

DEY (Auguste, Comte de), only son of Mme. de Dey. Made lieutenant of the dragoons when only eighteen, and followed the princes in emigration as a point of honor. He was idolized by his mother, who had remained in France in order to preserve his fortune for him. He participated in the Granville expedition. Imprisoned as a result of this affair, he wrote Mme. de Dey that he would arrive at her home, disguised and a fugitive, within three days' time. But he was shot in the Morbihan at the exact moment when his mother expired from the shock of having received instead of her son the conscript Julien Jussieu. [The Conscript.]

DIARD (Pierre-Francois), born in the suburbs of Nice; the son of a merchant-provost; quartermaster of the Sixth regiment of the line, in 1808, then chief of battalion in the Imperial Guard; retired with this rank on account of a rather severe wound received in Germany; afterwards an administrator and business man; excessive gambler. Husband of Juana Mancini who had been the mistress of Captain Montefiore, Diard's most intimate friend. In 1823, at Bordeaux, Diard killed and robbed Montefiore, whom he met by accident. Upon his return home he confessed his crime to his wife who vainly besought him to commit suicide; and she herself finally blew out his brains with a pistol shot. [The Maranas.]

DIARD (Maria-Juana-Pepita), daughter of La Marana, a Venetian courtesan, and a young Italian nobleman, Mancini, who acknowledged her. Wife of Pierre-Francois Diard whom she accepted on her mother's request, after having given herself to Montefiore who did not wish to marry her. Juana had been reared very strictly in the Spanish home of Perez de Lagounia, at Tarragone, and she bore her father's name. She was the descendant of a long line of courtesans, a feminine branch that had never made legal marriages. The blood of her ancestors was in her veins; she showed this involuntarily by the way in which she yielded to Montefiore. Although she did not love her husband, yet she remained entirely faithful to him, and she killed him for honor's sake. She had two children. [The Maranas.]

DIARD (Juan), first child of Mme. Diard. Born seven months after his mother's marriage, and perhaps the son of Montefiore. He was the image of Juana, who secretly petted him extravagantly, although she pretended to like her younger son the better. By a "species of admirable flattery" Diard had made Juan his choice. [The Maranas.]

DIARD (Francisque), second son of M. and Mme. Diard, born in Paris. A counterpart of his father, and the favorite--only outwardly--of his mother. [The Maranas.]

DIAZ (Jan), assumed name of Mme. Dinah de la Baudraye.

DIODATI, owner of a villa on Lake Geneva in 1823-1824.--Character in a novel called "L'Ambitieux par Amour" published by Albert Savarus in the "Revue de l'Est" in 1834. [Albert Savarus.]

DIONIS, notary at Nemours from about 1813 till the early part of the reign of Louis Philippe. He was a Cremiere-Dionis, but was always known by the latter name. A shrewd, double-faced individual, who was secretly a partner with Massin-Levrault the money-lender. He concerned himself with the inheritance left by Dr. Minoret, giving advice to the three legatees of the old physician. After the Revolution of 1830, he was elected mayor of Nemours, instead of M. Levrault, and about 1837 he became deputy. He was then received at court balls, in company with his wife, and Mme. Dionis was "enthroned" in the village because of her "ways of the throne." The couple had at least one daughter. [Ursule Mirouet.] Dionis breakfasted familiarly with Rastignac, Minister of Public Works, from 1839 to 1845. [The Member for Arcis.]

DOGUEREAU, publisher on rue de Coq, Paris, in 1821, having been established since the first of the century; retired professor of rhetoric. Lucien de Rubempre offered him his romance, "The Archer of Charles IX.," but the publisher would not give him more than four hundred francs for it, so the trade was not concluded. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

DOISY, porter of the Lepitre Institution, quarter du Marais, Paris, about 1814, at the time when Felix de Vandenesse came there to complete his course of study. This young man contracted a debt of one hundred francs on Doisy's account, which resulted in a very severe reprimand from his mother. [The Lily of the Valley.]

DOMINIS (Abbe de), priest of Tours during the Restoration; preceptor of Jacques de Mortsauf. [The Lily of the Valley.]

DOMMANGET, an accoucheur-physician, famous in Paris at the time of Louis Philippe. In 1840 he was called in to visit Mme. Calyste du Guenic, whom he had accouched, and who had taken a dangerous relapse on learning of her husband's infidelity. She was nursing her son at this time. On being taken into her confidence, Dommanget treated and cured her ailment by purely moral methods. [Beatrix.]

DONI (Massimilla). (See Varese, Princesse de.)

DORLANGE (Charles), first name of Sallenauve, which name see.

DORSONVAL (Madame), bourgeoise of Saumur, acquainted with M. and Mme. de Grassins at the time of the Restoration. [Eugenie Grandet.]

DOUBLON (Victor-Ange-Hermenegilde), bailiff at Angouleme during the Restoration. He acted against David Sechard on behalf of the Cointet brothers. [Lost Illusions.]

DUBERGHE, wine-merchant of Bordeaux from whom Nucingen purchased in 1815, before the battle of Waterloo, 150,000 bottles of wine, averaging thirty sous to the bottle. The financier sold them for six francs each to the allied armies, from 1817 to 1819. [The Firm of Nucingen.]

DUBOURDIEU, born about 1805; a symbolic painter of the Fouierist school; decorated. In 1845 he was met at the corner of rue Nueve- Vivienne by his friend Leon de Lora, when he expressed his ideas on art and philosophy to Gazonal and Bixiou, who were with the famous landscape-painter. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

DUBUT of Caen, merchant connected with MM. de Boisfranc, de Boisfrelon and de Boislaurier who were also Dubuts, and whose grandfather was a dealer in linens. Dubut of Caen was involved in the trial of the Chauffeurs of Mortagne, in 1809, and sentenced to death for contumacy. During the Restoration, on account of his devotion to the Royal cause, he had hoped to obtain the succession to the title of M. de Boisfranc. Louis XVIII. made him grand provost, in 1815, and later public prosecutor under the coveted name; finally he died as first president of the court. [The Seamy Side of History.]

DUCANGE (Victor), novelist and playwright of France: born in 1783 at La Haye; died in 1833; one of the collaborators on "Thirty Years," or "A Gambler's Life," and the author of "Leonide." Victor Ducange was present at Braulard's, the head-claquer's, in 1821, at a dinner where were also Adele Dupois, Frederic Dupetit-Mere and Mlle. Millot, Braulard's mistress. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

DUDLEY (Lord), statesman; one of the most distinguished of the older English peers living in Paris after 1816; husband of Lady Arabella Dudley; natural father of Henri de Marsay, to whom he paid small attention, and who became the lover of Arabella. He was "profoundly immoral." He reckoned among his illegitimate progeny, Euphemia Porraberil, and among the women he maintained a certain Hortense who lived on rue Tronchet. Before removing to France, Lord Dudley lived in his native land with two sons born in wedlock, but who were astonishingly like Marsay. [The Lily of the Valley. The Thirteen. A Man of Business.] Lord Dudley was present at Mlle. des Touches, shortly after 1830, when Marsay, then prime minister, told of his first love affair, these two statesmen exchanged philosophical reflections. [Another Study of Woman.] In 1834 he chanced to be present at a grand ball given by his wife, when he gambled in a salon with bankers, ambassadors and retired ministers. [A Daughter of Eve.]

DUDLEY (Lady Arabella), wife of the preceding; member of an illustrious English family that was free of any /mesalliance/ from the time of the Conquest; exceedingly wealthy; one of those almost regal ladies; the idol of the highest French society during the Restoration. She did not live with her husband to whom she had left two sons who resembled Marsay, whose mistress she had been. In some way she succeeded in taking Felix de Vandenesse away from Mme. de Mortsauf, thus causing that virtuous woman keen anguish. She was born, so she said, in Lancashire, where women die of love. [The Lily of the Valley.] In the early years of the reign of Charles X., at least during the summers, she lived at the village of Chatenay, near Sceaux. [The Ball at Sceaux.] Raphael de Valentin desired her and would have sought her but for the fear of exhausting the "magic skin." [The Magic Skin.] In 1832 she was among the guests at a soiree given by Mme. d'Espard, where the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse was maligned in the presence of Daniel d'Arthez, in love with her. [The Secrets of a Princess.] She was quite jealous of Mme. Felix de Vandenesse, the wife of her old-time lover, and in 1834-35 she manoeuvred, with Mme. de Listomere and Mme. d'Espard to make the young woman fall into the arms of the poet Nathan, whom she wished to be even homelier than he was. She said to Mme. Felix de Vandenesse: "Marriage, my child, is our purgatory; love our paradise." [A Daughter of Eve.] Lady Dudley, vengeance-bent, caused Lady Brandon to die of grief. [Letters of Two Brides.]

DUFAU, justice of the peace in a commune in the outskirts of Grenoble, where Dr. Benassis was mayor under the Restoration. Then a tall, bony man with gray locks and clothed in black. He aided materially in the work of regeneration accomplished by the physician in the village. [The Country Doctor.]