第50章 D(1)

DALLOT, mason in the suburbs of l'Isle-Adam in the early days of the Restoration, who was to marry a peasant woman of small wit named Genevieve. After having courted her for the sake of her little property, he deserted her for a woman of more means and also of a sharper intelligence. This separation was so cruel a blow to Genevieve that she became idiotic. [Farewell.]

DANNEPONT, alias La Pouraille, one of the assassins of M. and Mme.

Crottat. Imprisoned for his crime in 1830 at the Conciergerie, and under sentence of capital punishment; an escaped convict who had been sought on account of other crimes by the police for five years past.

Born about 1785 and sent to the galleys at the age of nineteen. There he had known Jacques Collin--Vautrin. Riganson, Selerier and he formed a sort of triumvirate. A short, skinny, dried-up fellow with a face like a marten. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

DAUPHIN, pastry-cook of Arcis-sur-Aube; well-known Republican. In 1830, in an electoral caucus, he questioned Sallenauve, a candidate for deputy, about Danton. [The Member for Arcis.]

DAURIAT, editor and bookman of Paris, on Palais-Royale, Galleries de Bois during the Restoration. He purchased for three thousand francs a collection of sonnets "Marguerites" from Lucien de Rubempre, who had scored a book of Nathan's. But he did not publish the sonnets until a long time afterwards, and with a success that the author declared to be posthumous. Dauriat's shop was the rendezvous of writers and politicians of note at this time. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.] Dauriat, who was Canalis' publisher, was asked in 1829 by Modeste Mignon for personal information concerning the poet, to which he made a rather ironical reply. In speaking of celebrated authors Dauriat was wont to say, "I have made Canalis. I have made Nathan." [Modeste Mignon.]

DAVID (Madame), woman living in the outskirts of Brives, who died of fright on account of the Chauffeurs, time of the Directory. [The Country Parson.]

DELBECQ, secretary and steward of Comte Ferraud during the Restoration. Retired attorney. A capable, ambitious man in the service of the countess, whom he aided to rid herself of Colonel Chabert when that officer claimed his former wife. [Colonel Chabert.]

DENISART, name assumed by Cerizet.

DERVILLE, attorney at Paris, rue Vivienne, from 1819 to 1840. Born in 1794, the seventh child of an insignificant bourgeois of Noyon. In 1816 he was only second clerk and dwelt on rue des Gres, having for a neighbor the well-known usurer Gobseck, who later advanced him one hundred and fifty thousand francs at 15 per cent., with which he purchased the practice of his patron, a man of pleasure now somewhat short of funds. Through Gobseck he met his future wife, Jenny Malvaut; through the same man he learned the Restaud secrets. In the winter of 1829-1830 he told of their troubles to the Vicomtesse de Grandlieu.

Derville had re-established the fortune of the feminine representative of the Grandlieu's younger branch, at the time of the Bourbon's re-entry, and therefore was on a friendly footing at her home.

[Gobseck.] He had been a clerk at Bordin's. [A Start in Life. The Gondreville Mystery.] He was attorney for Colonel Chabert who sought his conjugal rights with Comtesse Ferraud. He became keenly interested in the old officer, aiding him and being greatly grieved when, some years later, he found him plunged into idiocy in the Bicetre hospital.

[Colonel Chabert.] Derville was also attorney for Comte de Serizy, Mme. de Nucingen and the Ducs de Grandlieu and de Chaulieu, whose entire confidence he possessed. In 1830, under the name of Saint-

Denis, he and Corentin inquired of the Sechards at Angouleme concerning the real resources of Lucien de Rubempre. [Father Goriot.

Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

DERVILLE (Madame), born Jenny Malvaut; wife of Derville the attorney; young Parisian girl, though born in the country. In 1826 she lived alone, but maintaining a virtuous life, supported by her work. She was on the fifth floor of a gloomy house on rue Montmartre, where Gobseck had called to collect a note signed by her. He pointed her out to Derville, who married her without a dowry. Later she inherited from an uncle, a farmer who had become wealthy, seventy thousand francs with which she aided her husband to cancel his debt with Gobseck.

[Gobseck.] Being anxious for an invitation to the ball given by Birotteau, she paid a rather unexpected visit to the perfumer's wife.

She made much of the latter and of Mlle. Birotteau, and was invited with her husband to the festivities. It appears that some years before her marriage she had worked as dressmaker for the Birotteaus. [Cesar Birotteau.]

DESCOINGS (Monsieur and Madame), father-in-law and mother-in-law of Dr. Rouget of Issoudun. Dealers in wool, acting as selling agents for owners, and buying agents for fleece merchants of Berry. They also bought state lands. Rich and miserly. Died during the Republic within two years of each other and before 1799. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

DESCOINGS, son of the preceding; younger brother of Mme. Rouget, the doctor's wife; grocer at Paris, on rue Saint-Honore, not far from Robespierre's quarters. Descoings had married for love the widow of Bixiou, his predecessor. She was twelve years his senior but well preserved and "plump as a thrush after harvest." Accused of foreclosing, he was sent to the scaffold, in company with Andre Chenier, on the seventh Thermidor of year 2, July 25, 1794. The death of the grocer caused a greater sensation than did that of the poet.

Cesar Birotteau moved the plant of the perfumery "Queen of Roses" into Descoings' shop around 1800. The successor of the executed man managed his business badly; the inventor of the the "Eau Carminative" went bankrupt. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]