第18章 B(7)

BIBI-LUPIN, chief of secret police between 1819 and 1830; a former convict. In 1819 he personally arrested at Mme. Vauquer's boarding-house Jacques Collin, alias Vautrin, his old galley-mate and personal enemy. Under the name of Gondureau, Bibi-Lupin had made overtures to Mlle. Michonneau, one of Mme. Vauquer's guests, and through her he had obtained the necessary proofs of the real identity of Vautrin who was then without the pale of the law, but who later, May, 1830, became his successor as chief of secret police. [Father Goriot. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIDAULT (Monsieur and Madame), brother and sister-in-law of Bidault, alias Gigonnet; father and mother of M. and Mme. Saillard, furniture-dealers under the Central Market pillars during the latter part of the eighteenth and perhaps the beginning of the nineteenth centuries. [The Government Clerks.]

BIDAULT, known as Gigonnet, born in 1755; originally an Auvergnat; uncle of Mme. Saillard on the paternal side. A paper-merchant at one time, retired from business since the year II of the Republic, he opened an account with a Dutchman called Sieur Werbrust, who was a friend of Gobseck. In business relations with the latter, he was one of the most formidable usurers in Paris, during the Empire, the Restoration and the first part of the July Government. He dwelt in rue Greneta. [The Government Clerks. Gobseck.] Luigi Porta, a ranking officer retired under Louis XVIII., sold all his back pay to Gigonnet.

[The Vendetta.] Bidault was one of the syndicate that engineered the bankruptcy of Birotteau in 1819. At this time he persecuted Mme.

Madou, a market dealer in filberts, who was his debtor. [Cesar Birotteau.] In 1824 he succeeded in making his grand-nephew, Isidore Baudoyer, chief of the division under the Minister of Finance; in this he was aided by Gobseck and Mitral, and worked on the General Secretary, Chardin des Lupeaulx, through the medium of the latter's debts and the fact of his being candidate for deputy. [The Government Clerks.] Bidault was shrewd enough; he saw through--and much to his profit--the pretended speculation involved in the third receivership which was operated by Nucingen in 1826. [The Firm of Nucingen.] In 1833 M. du Tillet advised Nathan, then financially stranded, to apply to Gigonnet, the object being to involve Nathan. [A Daughter of Eve.]

The nick-name of Gigonnet was applied to Bidault on account of a feverish, involuntary contraction of a leg muscle. [The Government Clerks.]

BIDDIN, goldsmith, rue de l'Arbe-Sec, Paris, in 1829; one of Esther Gobseck's creditors. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIFFE (La), concubine of the criminal Riganson, alias Le Biffon. This woman, who was a sort of Jacques Collin in petticoats, evaded the police, thanks to her disguises. She could ape the marquise, the baronne and the comtesse to perfection. She had her own carriage and footmen. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

BIFFON (Le), an alias of Riganson.

BIGORNEAU, sentimental clerk of Fritot's, the shawl merchant in the Bourse quarter, Paris, time of Louis Philippe. [Gaudissart II.]

BIJOU (Olympe). (See Grenouville, Madame.)

BINET, inn-keeper in the Department of l'Orne in 1809. He was concerned in a trial which created some stir, and cast a shadow over Mme. de la Chanterie, striking at her daughter, Mme. des Tours-

Minieres. Binet harbored some brigands known as "chauffeurs." He was brought to trial for it and sentenced to five years' imprisonment. [The Seamy Side of History.]

BIROTTEAU (Jacques), a gardener hard by Chinon. He married the chambermaid of a lady on whose estate he trimmed vines. Three boys were born to them: Francois, Jean and Cesar. He lost his wife on the birth of the last child (1779), and himself died shortly after. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BIROTTEAU (Abbe Francois), eldest son of Jacques Birotteau; born in 1766; vicar of the church of Saint-Gatien at Tours, and afterwards cure of Saint-Symphorien in the same city. After the death of the Abbe de la Berge, in 1817, he became confessor of Mme. de Mortsauf, attending her last moments. [The Lily of the Valley.] His brother Cesar, the perfumer, wrote him after his--Cesar's--business failure in 1819, asking aid. Abbe Birotteau, in a touching letter, responded with the sum of one thousand francs which represented all his own little hoard and, in addition, a loan obtained from Mme. de Listomere. [Cesar Birotteau.] Accused of having inveigled Mme. de Listomere to leave him the income of fifteen hundred francs, which she bequeathed him on her death, Abbe Birotteau was placed under interdiction, in 1826, the victim of the terrible hatred of the Abbe Troubert. [The Vicar of Tours.]

BIROTTEAU (Jean), second son of Jacques Birotteau. A captain in the army, killed in the historic battle of La Trebia which lasted three days, June 17-19, 1799. [Cesar Birotteau.]

BIROTTEAU (Cesar), third son of Jacques Birotteau, born in 1779; dealer in perfumes in Paris at number 397 rue Saint-Honore, near the Place Vendome, in the old shop once occupied by the grocer Descoings, who was executed with Andre Chenier in 1794. After the eighteenth Brumaire, Cesar Birotteau succeeded Sieur Ragon, and moved the source of the "Queen of Roses" to the above address. Among his customers were the Georges, the La Billardieres, the Montaurans, the Bauvans, the Longuys, the Mandas, the Berniers, the Guenics, and the Fontaines.

These relations with the militant Royalists implicated him in the plot of the 13th Vendemaire, 1795, against the Convention; and he was wounded, as he told over and over, "by Bonaparte on the borders of Saint-Roche." In May, 1800, Birotteau the perfumer married Constance-