Repertory of The Comedie Humaine Part 25

HICLAR, Parisian musician, in 1845, who received from Dubourdieu, a symbolical painter, author of a figure of Harmony, an order to compose a symphony suitable of being played before the picture. [The Unconscious Humorists.]

HILEY, alias the Laborer, a chauffeur and the most cunning of minor partic.i.p.ants in the Royalist uprising of Orne. Was executed in 1809.

[The Seamy Side of History.]

HIPPOLYTE, young officer, aide-de-camp to general Eble in the Russian campaign; friend of Major Philippe de Sucy. Killed in an attack on the Russians near Studzianka, November 18, 1812. [Farewell.]

HOCHON, born at Issoudun about 1738; was tax-receiver at Selles, Berry. Married Maximilienne, the sister of Sub-Delegate Lousteau. Had three children, one of whom became Mme. Borniche. Hochon's marriage and the change of the political horizon brought him back to his native town where he and his family were long known as the Five Hochons.

Mlle. Hochon's marriage and the death of her brothers made the jest still tenable; for M. Hochon, despite a proverbial avarice, adopted their posterity--Francois Hochon, Baruch and Adolphine Borniche.

Hochon lived till an advanced age. He was still living at the end of the Restoration, and gave shrewd advice to the Bridaus regarding the Rouget legacy. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

HOCHON (Madame), wife of the preceding, born Maximilienne Lousteau about 1750; sister of the sub-delegate; also G.o.d-mother of Mme.

Bridau, nee Rouget. During her whole life she displayed a sweet and resigned sympathy. The neglected and timorous mother of a family, she bore the matrimonial yoke of a second Felix Grandet. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

HOCHON, elder son of the foregoing; survived his brother and sister; married at an early age to a wealthy woman by whom he had one son; died a year before her, in 1813, slain at the battle of Hanau. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

HOCHON (Francois), son of the preceding, born in 1798. Left an orphan at sixteen he was adopted by his paternal grandparents and lived in Issoudun with his cousins, the Borniche children. He affiliated secretly with Maxence Gilet, being one of the "Knights of Idlesse,"

till his conduct was discovered. His stern grandmother sent the young man to Poitiers where he studied law and received a yearly allowance of six hundred francs. [A Bachelor's Establishment.]

HONORINE, (See Bauvan, Comtesse Octave de.)

HOPWOOD (Lady Julia), English; made a journey to Spain between 1818 and 1819, and had there for a time a chamber-maid known as Caroline, who was none other than Antoinette de Langeais, who had fled from Paris after Montriveau jilted her. [The Thirteen.]

h.o.r.eAU (Jacques), alias the Stuart, had been lieutenant in the Sixty-ninth demi-brigade. Became one of the a.s.sociates of Tinteniac, known through his partic.i.p.ation in the Quiberon expedition. Turned chauffeur and compromised himself in the Orne Royalist uprising. Was executed in 1809. [The Seamy Side of History.]

HORTENSE was, under Louis Philippe, one of the numerous mistresses of Lord Dudley. She lived on rue Tronchet when Cerizet employed Antonia Chocardelle to hoodwink Maxime de Trailles. [A Man of Business. The Member for Arcis.]

HOSTAL (Maurice de l'), born in 1802; living physical portrait of Byron; nephew and like an adopted son of Abbe Loraux. He became, at Marais, in rue Payenne, the secretary and afterwards the confidant of Octave de Bauvan. Was acquainted with Honorine de Bauvan on rue Saint-Maur-Popincourt and all but fell in love with her. Turned diplomat, left France, married the Italian, Onorina Pedrotti, and became head of a family. While consul to Genoa, about 1836, he again met Octave de Bauvan, then a widower and near his end, who entrusted his son to him. M. de l'Hostal once entertained Claude Vignon, Leon de Lora and Felicite des Touches, to whom he related the marital troubles of the Bauvans. [Honorine.]

HOSTAL (Madame Maurice de l'), wife of the preceding, born Onorina Pedrotti. A beautiful and unusually rich Genoese; slightly jealous of the consul; perhaps overhead the story of the Bauvans. [Honorine.]

HULOT, born in 1766, served under the first Republic and Empire. Took an active part in the wars and tragedies of the time. Commanded the Seventy-second demi-brigade, called the Mayencaise, during the Chouan uprising of 1799. Fought against Montauran. His career as private and officer had been so filled that his thirty-three years seemed an age.

He went out a great deal. Rubbed elbows with Montcornet; called on Mme. de la Baudraye. He remained a democrat during the Empire; nevertheless Bonaparte recognized him. Hulot was made colonel of the grenadiers of the Guard, Comte de Forzheim and marshal. Retired to his splendid home on rue du Montparna.s.se, where he pa.s.sed his declining years simply, being deaf, remaining a friend of Cottin de Wissembourg, and often surrounded by the family of a brother whose misconduct hastened his end in 1841. Hulot was given a superb funeral. [The Chouans. The Muse of the Department. Cousin Betty.]

HULOT D'ERVY (Baron Hector), born about 1775; brother of the preceding; took the name of Hulot d'Ervy early in life in order to make a distinction between himself and his brother to whom he owed the brilliant beginning of a civil and military career. Hulot d'Ervy became ordonnance commissary during the Republic. The Empire made him a baron. During one of these periods he married Adeline Fischer, by whom he had two children. The succeeding governments, at least that of July, also favored Hector Hulot, and he became in turn, intendant-general, director of the War Department, councillor of state, and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. His private misbehavior dated from these periods and gathered force while he lived in Paris. Each of his successive mistresses--Jenny Cadine, Josepha Mirah, Valerie Marneffe, Olympe Bijou, Elodie Chardin, Atala Judici, Agathe Piquetard --precipitated his dishonor and ruin. He hid under various names, as Thoul, Th.o.r.ec and Vyder, anagrams of Hulot, Hector and d'Ervy. Neither the persecutions of the money-lender Samanon nor the influence of his family could reform him. After his wife's death he married, February 1, 1846, Agathe Piquetard, his kitchen-girl and the lowest of his servants. [Cousin Betty.]

HULOT D'ERVY (Baronne Hector), wife of the preceding; born Adeline Fischer, about 1790, in the village of Vosges; remarkable for her beauty; was married for mutual love, despite her inferior birth, and for some time lived caressed and adored by her husband and venerated by her brother-in-law. At the end of the Empire probably commenced her sorrows and the faithlessness of Hector, notwithstanding the two children born of their union, Victorin and Hortense. Had it not been for her maternal solicitude the baroness could have condoned the gradual degradation of her husband. The honor of the name and the future of her daughter gave her concern. No sacrifice was too great for her. She vainly offered herself to Celestin Crevel, whom she had formerly scorned, and underwent the parvenu's insults; she besought Josepha Mirah's aid, and rescued the baron from Atala Judici. The closing years of her life were not quite so miserable. She devoted herself to charitable offices, and lived on rue Louis-le-Grand with her married children and their reclaimed father. The intervention of Victorin, and the deaths of the Comte de Forzheim, of Lisbeth Fischer and of M. and Mme. Crevel, induced comfort and security that was often menaced. But the conduct of Hector with Agathe Piquetard broke the thread of Mme. Hulot d'Ervy's life; for some time she had had a nervous trouble. She died aged about fifty-six. [Cousin Betty.]

HULOT (Victorin), elder child of the foregoing. Married Mlle.

Celestine Crevel and was father of a family. Became under Louis Philippe one of the leading attorneys of Paris. Was deputy, counsel of the War Department, consulting counsel of the police service and counsel for the civil list. His salary for the various offices came to eighteen thousand francs. He was seated at Palais-Bourbon when the election of Dorlange-Sallenauve was contested. His connection with the police enabled him to save his family from the clutches of Mme.

Valerie Crevel. In 1834 he owned a house on rue Louis-le-Grand. Seven or eight years later he sheltered nearly all the Hulots and their near kindred, but he could not prevent the second marriage of his father.

[The Member for Arcis. Cousin Betty.]

HULOT (Madame Victorin), wife of preceding, born Celestine Crevel; married as a result of a meeting between her father and her father-in-law, who were both libertines. She took part in the dissensions between the two families, replaced Lisbeth Fischer in the care of the house on rue Louis-le-Grand, and probably never saw the second Mme. Celestin Crevel, unless at the death-bed of the retired perfumer. [Cousin Betty.]

HULOT (Hortense). (See Steinbock, Comtesse Wenceslas.)

HULOT D'ERVY (Baronne Hector), nee Agathe Piquetard of Isigny, where she became the second wife of Hector Hulot d'Ervy. Went to Paris as kitchen-maid for Hulot about December, 1845, and was married to her master, then a widower, on February 1, 1846. [Cousin Betty.]

HUMANN, celebrated Parisian tailor of 1836 and succeeding years. At the instance of the students Rabourdin and Juste he clothed the poverty-stricken Zephirin Marcas "as a politician." [Z. Marcas.]

HUSSON (Madame.) (See Mme. Clapart.)

HUSSON (Oscar), born about 1804, son of the preceding and of M. Husson --army-contractor; led a checkered career, explained by his origin and childhood. He scarcely knew his father, who made and soon lost a fortune. The previous fast life of his mother, who afterwards married again, gave rise to or upheld some more or less influential connections and made her, during the first Empire, the t.i.tular _femme de chambre_ to Madame Mere--Let.i.tia Bonaparte. Napoleon's fall marked the ruin of the Hussons. Oscar and his mother--now married to M.

Clapart--lived in a modest apartment on rue de la Cerisaie, Paris.

Oscar obtained a license and became clerk in Desroches' law office in Paris, being coached by G.o.deschal. During this time he became acquainted with two young men, his cousins the Marests. One of them had previously instigated an early escapade of Oscar's, and it was now followed by one much more serious, on rue de Vendome at the house of Florentine Cabirolle, who was then maintained by Cardot, Oscar's wealthy uncle. Husson was forced to abandon law and enter military service. He was in the cavalry regiment of the Duc de Maufrigneuse and the Vicomte de Serizy. The interest of the dauphiness and of Abbe Gaudron obtained for him promotion and a decoration. He became in turn aide-de-camp to La Fayette, captain, officer of the Legion of Honor and lieutenant-colonel. A noteworthy deed made him famous on Algerian territory during the affair of La Macta; Husson lost his left arm in the vain attempt to save Vicomte de Serizy. Put on half-pay, he obtained the post of collector for Beaumont-sur-Oise. He then married --1838--Georgette Pierrotin and met again the accomplices or witnesses of his earlier escapades--one of the Marests, the Moreaus, etc. [A Start in Life.]

HUSSON (Madame Oscar), wife of the preceding; born Georgette Pierrotin; daughter of the proprietor of the stage-service of Oise. [A Start in Life.]

HYDE DE NEUVILLE (Jean-Guillaume, Baron)--1776-1857--belonged to the Martignac ministry of 1828; was, in 1797, one of the most active Bourbon agents. Kept civil war aflame in the West, and held a conference in 1799 with First Consul Bonaparte relative to the restoration of Louis XVIII. [The Chouans.]

I

IDAMORE, nick-name of Chardin junior while he was _claqueur_ in a theatre on the Boulevard du Temple, Paris. [Cousin Betty.]

ISEMBERG (Marechal, Duc d'), probably belonged to the Imperial n.o.bility. He lost at the gaming table, in November, 1809, in a grand fete given at Paris at Senator Malin de Gondreville's home, while the d.u.c.h.esse de Lansac was acting as peacemaker between a youthful married couple. [Domestic Peace.]

J

JACMIN (Philoxene), of Honfleur; perhaps cousin of Jean Butscha; maid to Eleonore de Chaulieu; in love with Germain Bonnet, valet of Melchior de Ca.n.a.lis. [Modeste Mignon.]

JACOMETY, head jailer of the Conciergerie, at Paris, in May, 1830, during Rubempre's imprisonment. [Scenes from a Courtesan's Life.]

JACQUELIN, born in Normandy about 1776; in 1816 was employed by Mlle.

Cormon, an old maid of Alencon. He married when she espoused M. du Bousquier. After the double marriage Jacquelin remained for some time in the service of the niece of the Abbe de Sponde. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]

JACQUES, for a considerable period butler of Claire de Beauseant, following her to Bayeux. Essentially "aristocratic, intelligent and discreet," he understood the sufferings of his mistress. [Father Goriot. The Deserted Woman.]

JACQUET (Claude-Joseph), a worthy bourgeois of the Restoration; head of a family, and something of a crank. He performed the duties of a deputy-mayor in Paris, and also had charge of the archives in the Department of Foreign Affairs. Was greatly indebted to his friend Jules Desmarets; so he deciphered for him, about 1820, a code letter of Gratien Bourignard. When Clemence Desmarets died, Jacquet comforted the broker in the Saint-Roch church and in the Pere-Lachaise cemetery.

[The Thirteen.]

JACQUINOT, said to have succeeded Cardot as notary at Paris, time of Louis Philippe [The Middle Cla.s.ses.]; but since Cardot was succeeded by Berthier, his son-in-law, a discrepancy is apparent.

JACQUOTTE, left the service of a cure for that of Dr. Bena.s.sis, whose house she managed with a devotion and care not unmixed with despotism.

[The Country Doctor.]

JAN,* a painter who cared not a fig for glory. About 1838 he covered with flowers and decorated the door of a bed-chamber in a suite owned by Crevel on rue du Dauphin, Paris. [Cousin Betty.]

* Perhaps the fresco-painter, Laurent-Jan, author of "Unrepentant Misanthropy," and the friend of Balzac, to whom the latter dedicated his drama, "Vautrin."

JANVIER, priest in a village of Isere in 1829, a "veritable Fenelon shrunk to a cure's proportions"; knew, understood and a.s.sisted Bena.s.sis. [The Country Doctor.]

j.a.pHET (Baron), celebrated chemist who subjected to hydrofluoric acid, to chloride of nitrogen, and to the action of the voltaic battery the mysterious "magic skin" of Raphael de Valentin. To his stupefaction the savant wrought no change on the tissue. [The Magic Skin.]

JEAN, coachman and trusted servant of M. de Merret, at Vendome, in 1816. [La Grande Breteche.]