第194章 V(7)

VERNEUIL (Duchesse Hortense de), wife of the preceding, a haughty and pious personage, daughter of a wealthy first president of a royal court, who died in 1800. Of her four children, only two lived--her daughter Laure and the Prince Gaspard de Loudon; she was on very intimate terms with the Herouvilles, and especially with the elderly Mademoiselle d'Herouville, and received a visit from them, one day in October, 1829, with the Mignon de la Basties, followed by Melchior de Canalis and Ernest de la Briere. [Modeste Mignon.]

VERNEUIL (Laure de), daughter of the preceding couple. At the entertainment at Rosembray in October, 1829, Eleonore de Chaulieu gave her advice on the subject of tapestry and embroidery. [Modeste Mignon.]

VERNEUIL (Duchesse de), sister of the Prince de Blamont-Chauvry; an intimate friend of the Duchesse de Bourbon, sorely tried by the disasters of the Revolution; aunt and, in a way, mother by adoption of Blanche-Henriette de Mortsauf (born Lenoncourt). She belonged to a society of which Saint-Martin was the soul. The Duchesse de Verneuil, who owned the Clochegourde estate in Touraine, gave it, in her lifetime, to Madame de Mortsauf, reserving for herself only one room of the mansion. Madame de Verneuil died in the early part of the nineteenth century. [The Lily of the Valley.]

VERNEUIL (Marie-Nathalie de).[*] (See Montauran, Marquise Alphonse de.)

[*] On June 23, 1837, under the title of /Le Gars/, the Ambigu-Comique presented a drama of Antony Beraud's in five acts and six tableaux, which was a modified reproduction of the adventures of Marie-Nathalie de Montauran.

VERNIER (Baron), intendant-general, under obligations to Hector Hulot d'Ervy, whom he met, in 1843, at the Ambigu theatre, as escort of a gloriously handsome woman. He afterwards received a visit from the Baronne Adeline Hulot, coming for information. [Cousin Betty.]

VERNIER, formerly a dyer, who lived on his income at Vouvray (Touraine), about 1821; a cunning countryman, father of a marriageable daughter named Claire; was challenged by Felix Gaudissart in 1831, for having played a practical joke on that illustrious traveling merchant, and fought a bloodless pistol duel. [Gaudissart the Great.]

VERNIER (Madame), wife of the preceding, a stout little woman, of robust health; a friend of Madame Margaritis; she gladly contributed her share to the mystification of Gaudissart as conceived by her husband. [Gaudissart the Great.]

VERNISSET (Victore de), a poet of the "Angelic School," at the head of which stood Canalis, the academician; a contemporary of Beranger, Delavigne, Lamartine, Lousteau, Nathan, Vigny, Hugo, Barbier, Marie Gaston and Gautier, he moved in various Parisian circles; he was seen at the Brothers of Consolation on the rue Chanoinesse, and he received pecuniary assistance from the Baronne de la Chanterie, president of the above-mentioned association; he was to be found, with Heloise Brisetout, on the rue Chauchat, at the time of her house-warming in the apartments in which she succeeded Josepha Mirah; there he met J.-J. Bixiou, Leon de Lora, Etienne Lousteau and Stidmann; he fell madly in love with Madame Schontz. He was invited to the marriage of Celestin Crevel and Valerie Marneffe. [The Seamy Side of History.

Beatrix. Cousin Betty.]

VERNON (Marechal) father of the Duc de Vissembourg and the Prince Chiavari. [Beatrix.]

VERNOU (Felicien), a Parisian journalist. He used his influence in starting Marie Godeschal, usually called Mariette, at the Porte Saint-

Martin. The husband of an ugly, vulgar, and crabbed woman, he had by her children that were by no means welcome. He lived in wretched lodgings on the rue Mandar, when Lucien de Rubempre was presented to him. Vernou was a caustic critic on the side of the oppositon. The uncongeniality of his domestic life embittered his character and his genius. He was a finished specimen of the envious man, and pursued Lucien de Rubempre with an alert and malicious jealousy. [A Bachelor's Establishment. Lost Illusions. A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] In 1834, Blondet recommended him to Nathan as a "Handy Andy" for a newspaper. [A Daughter of Eve.]

Celestin Crevel invited him to his marriage with Valerie Marneffe.

[Cousin Betty.]

VERNOU (Madame Felicien), wife of the preceding, whose vulgarity was one of the causes of her husband's bitterness, revealed herself in her true light to Lucien de Rubempre, when she mentioned a certain Madame Mahoudeau as one of her friends. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris.]

VERT (Michel-Jean-Jerome), nick-named Vermichel, formerly violinist in the Bourgogne regiment, was occupied, during the Restoration, with the various callings of fiddler, door-keeper of the Hotel de Ville, drum-beater of Soulanges, jailer of the local prison, and finally bailiff's deputy in the service of Brunet. He was intimate friend of Fourchon, with whom he was in the habit of getting on sprees, and whose hatred for the Montcornets, owners of Aigues, he shared. [The Peasantry.]

VERT (Madame Michel), wife of the preceding, commonly called Vermichel, as was the case with her husband; a mustached virago, a metre in width, and of two hundred and forty pounds weight, but active in spite of this; she ruled her husband absolutely. [The Peasantry.]