第79章 G(12)

GORDES (Mademoiselle de), at the head of an aristocratic salon of Alencon, about 1816, while her father, the aged Marquis de Gordes, was still living with her. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

GORENFLOT, mason of Vendome, who walled up the closet concealing Mme. de Merret's lover, the Spaniard Bagos de Feredia. [La Grande Breteche.]

GORENFLOT, probably posed for Quasimodo of Hugo's "Notre-Dame."

Decrepit, misshapen, deaf, diminutive, he lived in Paris about 1839, and was organ-blower and bell-ringer in the church of Saint-Louis en l'Ile. He also acted as messenger in the confidential financial correspondence between Bricheteau and Dorlange-Sallenauve. [The Member for Arcis.]

GORIOT,* (Jean-Joachim), born about 1750; started as a porter in the grain market. During the first Revolution, although he had received no education, but having a trader's instinct, he began the manufacture of vermicelli and made a fortune out of it. Thrift and fortune favored him under the Terror. He passed for a bold citizen and fierce patriot.

Prosperity enabled him to marry from choice the only daughter of a wealthy farmer of Brie, who died young and adored. Upon their two children, Anastasie and Delphine, he lavished all the tenderness of which their mother had been the recipient, spoiling them with fine things. Goriot's griefs date from the day he set each up in housekeeping in magnificent fashion on Chaussee-d'Antin. Far from being grateful for his pecuniary sacrifices, his sons-in-law, Restaud and Nucingen, and his daughters themselves, were ashamed of his bourgeois exterior. In 1813 he had retired saddened and impoverished to the Vauquer boarding-house on rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve. The quarrels of his daughters and the greedy demands for money increased and in 1819 followed him thither. Almost all the guests of the house and especially Mme. Vauquer herself--whose ambitious designs upon him had come to naught--united in persecuting Goriot, now well-nigh poverty-stricken. He found an agreeable respite when he acted as a go-between for the illicit love affair of Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac, his fellow-lodger. The financial distress of Mme. de Restaud, Trailles' victim, gave Goriot the finishing blow. He was compelled to give up the final and most precious bit of his silver plate, and beg the assistance of Gobseck the usurer. He was crushed. A serious attack of apoplexy carried him off. He died on rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve.

Rastignac watched over him, and Bianchon, then an interne, attended him. Only two men, Christophe, Mme. Vauquer's servant, and Rastignac, followed the remains to Saint-Etienne du Mont and to Pere-Lachaise.

The empty carriages of his daughters followed as far as the cemetery.

[Father Goriot.]

* Two Parisian theatres and five authors have depicted Goriot's life on the stage; March 6, 1835, at the Vaudeville, Ancelot and Paul Dupont; the same year, the month following, at the Varietes, Theaulon, Alexis de Comberousse and Jaime Pere. Also the /Boeuf Gras/ of a carnival in a succeeding year bore the name of Goriot.

GORITZA (Princesse), a charming Hungarian, celebrated for her beauty, towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, and to whom the youthful Chevalier de Valois became so attached that he came near fighting on her account with M. de Lauzun; nor could he ever speak of her without emotion. From 1816 to 1830, the Alencon aristocracy were given glimpses of the princess's portrait, which adorned the chevalier's gold snuff-box. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

GORJU (Madame), wife of the mayor of Sancerre, in 1836, and mother of a daughter "whose figure threatened to change with her first child," and who sometimes came with her to the receptions of Mme. de la Baudraye, the "Muse of the Department." One evening, in the fall of 1836, she heard Lousteau reading ironically fragments of "Olympia."

[The Muse of the Department.]

GOTHARD, born in 1788; lived about 1803 in Arcis-sur-Aube, where his courage and address obtained for him the place of groom to Laurence de Cinq-Cygne. Devoted servant of the countess; he was one of the principals acquitted in the trial which ended with the execution of Michu. [The Gondreville Mystery.] Gothard never left the service of the Cinq-Cygne family. Thirty-six years later he was their steward.

With his brother-in-law, Poupard, the Arcis tavern-keeper, he electioneered for his masters. [The Member for Arcis.]

GOUJET (Abbe), cure of Cinq-Cygne, Aube, about 1792, discovered for the son of Beauvisage the farmer, who were still good Catholics, the Greek name of Phileas, one of the few saints not abolished by the new regime. [The Member for Arcis.] Former abbe of the Minimes, and a friend of Hauteserre. Was the tutor of Adrien and Robert Hauteserre; enjoyed a game of boston with their parents--1803. His political prudence sometimes led him to censure the audacity of their kinswoman, Mlle. de Cinq-Cygne. Nevertheless, he held his own with the persecutor of the house, Corentin the police-agent; and attended Michu when that victim of a remarkable trial, known as "the abduction of Gondreville," went to the scaffold. During the Restoration he became Bishop of Troyes. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

GOUJET (Mademoiselle), sister of the foregoing; good-natured old maid, ugly and parsimonious, who lived with her brother. Almost every evening she played boston at the Hauteserres and was terrified by Corentin's visits. [The Gondreville Mystery.]

GOULARD, mayor of Cinq-Cygne, Aube, in 1803. Tall, stout and miserly; married a wealthy tradeswoman of Troyes, whose property, augmented by all the lands of the rich abbey of Valdes-Preux, adjoined Cinq-Cygne.

Goulard lived in the old abbey, which was very near the chateau of Cinq-Cygne. Despite his revolutionary proclivities, he closed his eyes to the actions of the Hauteserres and Simeuses who were Royalist plotters. [The Gondreville Mystery.]