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
HERMANN, a Nuremberg merchant who commanded a free company enlisted
against the French, in October, 1799. Was arrested and thrown into a
prison of Andernach, where he had for fellow-prisoner, Prosper Magnan,
a young assistant surgeon, native of Beauvais, Oise. Hermann thus
learned the terrible secret of an unjust detention followed by an
execution equally unjust. Many years after, in Paris, he told the
story of the martyrdom of Magnan in the presence of F. Taillefer, the
unpunished author of the dual crime which had caused the imprisonment
and death of an innocent man. [The Red Inn.]
HERON, notary of Issoudun in the early part of the nineteenth century,
who was attorney for the Rougets, father and son. [A Bachelor's
Establishment.]
HEROUVILLE (Marechal d'), whose ancestors' names were inscribed in the
pages of French history, during the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, replete with glory and dramatic mystery; was Duc de Nivron.
He was the last governor of Normandy, returned from exile with Louis
XVIII. in 1814, and died at an advanced age in 1819. [The Hated Son.
Modeste Mignon.]
HEROUVILLE (Duc d'), son of the preceding; born in 1796, at Vienna,
Austria, during the emigration, "fruit of the matrimonial autumn of
the last governor of Normandy"; descendant of a Comte d'Herouville, a
Norman free-lance who lived under Henri IV. and Louis XIII. He was
Marquis de Saint-Sever, Duc de Nivron, Comte de Bayeux, Vicomte
d'Essigny, grand equerry and peer of France, chevalier of the Order of
the Spur and of the Golden Fleece, and grandee of Spain. A more modest
origin, however, was ascribed to him by some. The founder of his house
was supposed to have been an usher at the court of Robert of Normandy.
But the coat-of-arms bore the device "Herus Villa"--House of the
Chief. At any rate, the physical unattractiveness and comparative lack
of means of D'Herouville, who was a kind of dwarf, contrasted with his
aristocratic lineage. However, his income allowed him to keep a house
on rue Saint-Thomas du Louvre, Paris, and to keep on good terms with
the Chaulieus. He maintained Fanny Beaupre, who apparently cost him
dear; for, about 1829, he sought the hand of the Mignon heiress.
During the reign of Louis Philippe, D'Herouville, then a social
leader, had acquaintance with the Hulots, was known as a celebrated
art amateur, and resided on rue de Varenne, in Faubourg Saint-Germain.
Later he took Josepha Mirah from Hulot, and installed her in fine
style on rue Saint-Maur-du-Temple with Olympe Bijou. [The Hated Son.
Jealousies of a Country Town. Modeste Mignon. Cousin Betty.]
HEROUVILLE (Mademoiselle d'), aunt of the preceding; dreamed of a rich
marriage for that stunted creature, who seemed a sort of reproduction
of an evil Herouville of past ages. She desired Modeste Mignon for
him; but her aristocratic pride revolted at the thought of Mlle.
Monegod or Augusta de Nucingen. [Modeste Mignon.]
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