第113章 L(15)
Prince of Bohemia. A Man of Business. The Middle Classes. The Unconscious Humorists.]
LUIGIA, young and beautiful Roman girl of the suburbs, wife of Benedetto, who claimed the right of selling her. She tried to kill herself at the same time she killed him, but did not succeed. Charles de Sallenauve--Dorlange--protected her, taking care of her when she became a widow, and made her his housekeeper in 1839. Luigia soon left her benefactor, the voice of slander having accused them in their mutually innocent relations. [The Member for Arcis.]
LUPEAULX (Clement Chardin des), officer and politician, born about 1785; left in good circumstances by his father; who was ennobled by Louis XV., his coat-of-arms showing "a ferocious wolf of sable bearing a lamb in its jaws," with this motto: "En lupus in historia." A shrewd and ambitious man, ready for all enterprises, even the most compromising, Clement des Lupeaulx knew how to make himself of service to Louis XVIII. in several delicate undertakings. Many influential members of the aristocracy placed in his hands their difficult business and their lawsuits. He served thus as mediator between the Duc de Navarreins and Polydore Milaud de la Baudraye, and attained a kind of mightiness that Annette seemed to fear would be disastrous to Charles Grandet. He accumulated duties and ranks, was master of petitions in the Council of State, secretary-general to the minister of finance, colonel in the National Guard, government commissioner in a joint-stock company; also provided with an inspectorship in the king's house, he became Chevalier de Saint-Louis and officer of the Legion of Honor. An open follower of Voltaire, but an attendant at mass, at all times a Bertrand in pursuit of a Raton, egotistic and vain, a glutton and a libertine, this man of intellect, sought after in all social circles, a kind of minister's "household drudge," openly lived, until 1825, a life of pleasure and anxiety, striving for political success and love conquests. As mistresses he is known to have had Esther van Gobseck, Flavie Colleville; perhaps, even, the Marquise d'Espard. He was seen at the Opera ball in the winter of 1824, at which Lucien de Rubempre reappeared. The close of this year brought about considerable change in the Secretary-General's affairs.
Crippled by debt, and in the power of Gobseck, Bidault and Mitral, he was forced to give up one of the treasury departments to Isidore Baudoyer, despite his personal liking for Rabourdin. He gained as a result of this stroke a coronet and a deputyship. He had ambitions for a peerage, the title of gentleman of the king's chamber, a membership in the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-lettres, and the commander's cross. [The Muse of the Department. Eugenie Grandet. A Bachelor's Establishment. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. The Government Clerks. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life. Ursule Mirouet.]
LUPEAULX (Des), nephew of the preceding, and, thanks to him, appointed sub-prefect of Ville-aux-Fayes, Bourgogne, in 1821, in the department presided over successively by Martial de la Roche-Hugon and Casteran.
As Gaubertin's prospective son-in-law, M. des Lupeaulx, espousing the cause of his fiancee's family, was instrumental in disgusting Montcornet, owner of Aigues, with his property. [The Peasantry.]
LUPIN, born in 1778, son of the last steward of the Soulanges in Bourgogne; in time he became manager of the domain, notary and deputy mayor of the city of Soulanges. Although married and a man of family, M. Lupin, still in excellent physical condition, was, in 1823, a brilliant figure in Madame Soudry's reception-room, where he was known for his tenor voice and his extreme gallantries--the latter characteristic being proved by two liaisons carried on with two middle-class women, Madame Sarcus, wife of Sarcus the Rich, and Euphemie Plissoud. [The Peasantry.]
LUPIN (Madame), wife of the preceding, called "Bebelle;" only daughter of a salt-merchant enriched by the Revolution; had a platonic affection for the chief clerk, Bonnac. Madame Lupin was fat, awkward, of very ordinary appearance, and weak intellectually. On account of these characteristics Lupin and the Soudry adherents neglected her.
[The Peasantry.]
LUPIN (Amaury), only son of the preceding couple, perhaps the lover of Adeline Sarcus, who became Madame Adolphe Sibilet; was on the point of marrying one of Gaubertin's daughters, the same one, doubtless, that was wooed and won by M. des Lupeaulx. In the midst of this liaison and of these matrimonial designs, Amaury Lupin was sent to Paris in 1822 by his father to study the notary's profession with Maitre Crottat, where he had for a companion another clerk, Georges Marest, with whom he committed some indiscretions and went into debt. Amaury went with his friend to the Lion d'Argent, rue d'Enghien in the Saint-Denis section, when Marest took Pierrotin's carriage to Isle-Adam. On the way they met Oscar Husson, and made fun of him. The following year Amaury Lupin returned to Soulanges in Bourgogne. [The Peasantry. A Start in Life.]