Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — ZCerfberr, Anatole
General
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z
Cerfberr, Anatole
Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850. Comédie humaine
ESGRIGNON (Charles-Marie-Victor-Ange-Carol, Marquis d'), or, Des
Grignons--following the earlier name--commander of the Order of
Saint-Louis; born about 1750, died in 1830. Head of a very ancient
family of the Francs, the Karawls who came from the North to conquer
the Gauls, and who were entrusted with the defence of a French highway.
The Esgrignons, quasi-princes under the house of Valois and all-powerful
under Henry IV., were very little known at the court of Louis XVIII.;
and the marquis, ruined by the Revolution, lived in rather reduced
circumstances at Alencon in an old gable-roofed house formerly
belonging to him, which had been sold as common property, and which
the faithful notary Chesnel had repurchased, together with certain
portions of his other estates. The Marquis d'Esgrignon, though not
having to emigrate, was still obliged to conceal himself. He
participated in the Vendean struggle against the Republic, and was one
of the members of the Committee Royal of Alencon. In 1800, at the age
of fifty, in the hope of perpetuating his race, he married Mlle. de
Nouastre, who died in child-birth, leaving the marquis an only son. M.
d'Esgrignon always overlooked the escapades of this child, whose
reputation was preserved by Chesnel; and he passed away shortly after
the downfall of Charles X., saying: "The Gauls triumph." [The Chouans.
Jealousies of a Country Town.]
ESGRIGNON (Madame d') nee Nouastre; of blood the purest and noblest;
married at twenty-two, in 1800, to Marquis Carol d'Esgrignon, a man of
fifty. She soon died at the birth of an only son. She was "the
prettiest of human beings; in her person were reawakened the charms
--now fanciful--of the feminine figures of the sixteenth century."
[Jealousies of a Country Town.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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