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
NISERON (Jean-Francois), beadle, sacristan, chorister, bell-ringer,
and grave-digger of the parish of Blangy (Bourgogne), during the
Restoration; nephew and only heir of Niseron the cure; born in 1751.
He was delighted at the Revolution, was the ideal type of the
Republican, a sort of Michel Chrestien of the fields; treated with
cold disdain the Pichard family, who took from him the inheritance, to
which he alone had any right; lived a life of poverty and
sequestration; was none the less respected; was of Montcornet's party
represented by Brossette; their opponent, Gregoire Rigou, felt for him
both esteem and fear. Jean-Francois Niseron lost, one after another,
his wife and his two children, and had by his side, in his old days,
only Genevieve, natural daughter of his deceased son, Auguste. [The
Peasantry.]
NISERON (Auguste), son of the preceding; soldier of the Republic and
of the Empire; while an artilleryman in 1809, he seduced, at Zahara, a
young Montenegrin, Zena Kropoli, who died, at Vincennes, early in the
year 1810, leaving him an infant daughter. Thus he could not realize
his purpose of marrying her. He himself was killed, before Montereau,
during the year 1814, by the bursting of a shell. [The Peasantry.]
NISERON (Genevieve), natural daughter of the preceding and the
Montenegrin woman, Zena Kropoli; born in 1810, and named Genevieve
after a paternal aunt; an orphan from the age of four, she was reared
in Bourgogne by her grandfather, Jean-Francois Niseron. She had her
father's beauty and her mother's peculiarities. Her patronesses,
Madame Montcornet and Madame de Michaud, bestowed upon her the surname
Pechina, and, to guard her against Nicholas Tonsard's attentions,
placed her in a convent at Auxerre, where she might acquire skill in
sewing and forget Justin Michaud, whom she loved unconsciously. [The
Peasantry.]
NOEL, book-keeper for Jean-Jules Popinot of Paris, in 1828, at the
time that the judge questioned the Marquis d'Espard, whose wife tried
to deprive him of the right to manage his property. [The Commission in
Lunacy.]
NOSWELL (Mistress), a rich and eccentric Englishwoman, who was in
Paris at the Hotel Lawson about the middle of Louis Philippe's reign;
after much mental debate she bought of Fritot the shawl called Selim,
which he said at first it was "impossible" for him to sell.
[Gaudissart II.]
NOUASTRE (Baron de), a refugee of the purest noble blood. A ruined
man, he returned to Alencon in 1800, with his daughter, who was
twenty-two years of age, and found a home with the Marquis
d'Esgrignon, and died of grief two months later. Shortly afterwards
the marquis married the orphan daughter. [Jealousies of a Country
Town.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account